THE BOOK WAS DRENCHED - OUDL Home

THE BOOK WAS 

DRENCHED

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF 

JOHN LYLY 

R. W. BOND

HENRY FROWDE, M.A. 

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 

LONDON, EDINBURGH 

NEW YORK

ST. JOIIN'S GATE 

SOUTH ENTRANCE TO THE PHIORY OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM, THE SEAT OF THE REVELS OFFICE FROM 1571 OR EARLIER TO 1610 : P. 38 

From Dugdale's Monasticon

THE COMPLETE WORKS 

OF 

JOHN LYLY 

NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COLLECTED 

AND EDITED FROM THE EARLIEST QUARTOS 

WITH LIFE, BIBLIOGRAPHY, ESSAYS 

NOTES, AND INDEX 

BY 

R. WARWICK BOND, M.A. 

Sad patience that waiteth at the doore.— The Bee. 

Cenx qui ont ete les predcesseurs des grands esprits, et qui 

ont contribue en quelque facon a leur education, leur doivent d'etre 

sauves de l'oubli. Dante fait vivre Brunetto Latini, Milton du 

Bartas; Shakespeare fait vivre Lyly.—MEZIERES. 

VOL. I 

LIFE 

EUPHUES: THE ANATOMY OF WYT 

ENTERTAINMENTS 

OXFORD 

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 

MDCCCCII

OXFORD 

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 

BY HORACE HART, M.A. 

PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

PREFACE 

T HE work here offered to Elizabethan students is the first 

collected edition of an author whose immense importance 

to English Literature is beginning to receive a tardy 

recognition. I hope it may come to seem yet more strange 

that Lyly should have had to wait so long for his due. The 

neglect of him is, I think, partly referable to his depreciation 

by Collier, whose indefatigable and invaluable labours as a 

bibliographer and collector of facts were not, so far as I have 

observed, assisted by any commensurate critical or literary 

gift. Prof. Arber's excellent reprint (with Introduction) of the 

text of Euphues was issued in 1868 ; Fairholt's edition, however 

inadequate, of the eight acknowledged plays, as early as 

1858 ; while Pappe has appeared obscurely once or twice ; 

and it would be a churlish temper that failed in gratitude to 

these, who have at least kept Lyly within the ken of readers. 

We have had, further, essays on Euphuism from Professor 

Morley in 1861 and Dr. Weymouth in 1871, a chapter on the 

same subject in Mr. Courthope's History of Poetry', vol. ii, 

chapters on the connexion of Lyly's dramatic work with that 

of Shakespeare from Mr. J. A. Symonds and Dr. A. W. Ward, 

Mr. Sidney Lee's article in the Dictionary of National Biography, 

and other contributions. But attention to the substance 

of Lyly's work and recognition of its literary bearings has been 

paid first, or chiefly, abroad. It has reached us mainly through 

the channels of Mezieres, Hense, Landmann, Jusserand, and 

others ; while the best and most complete account of Euphuism

VI PREFACE 

is from the pen of an American, Mr. C. G. Child, and the 

only serious attempt at a Life from that of another American, 

Mr. G. P. Baker. And almost everywhere far more attention 

has been paid to Euphuism than to the matter of the Euphuist's 

work, or to the man. Lyly is still generally regarded in 

England mainly as the originator of a tiresome and fantastic 

style that enjoyed an exaggerated and mistaken vogue among 

contemporaries of ill-regulated taste, and as one who may 

further deserve some brief notice because he wrote in Shakespeare's 

time. 

This is not the subject which arrested my attention a long 

while since, not that to which I have, latterly, devoted four 

years of continuous and exclusive work. These volumes deal, 

in the first place, with the earliest English writer with an 

acute sense of form, or, if Pettie, his model, must be excepted, 

at least with the first who made Englishmen feel that prose 

was an art ; also with the first English novelist, and—though 

this is a point of quite minor importance—with one of the 

most admired and conspicuous men of letters of the period 

1580-1600. They deal, in the second place, with the first 

regular English dramatist, the true inventor and introducer of 

dramatic style, conduct, and dialogue ; and, in these respects, 

the chief master of Shakespeare and (but mainly through 

the latter) of Ben Jonson, and the attendant host of playwrights. 

There is no play before Lyly. He wrote eight ; and 

immediately thereafter England produced some hundreds— 

produced that marvel and pride of the greatest literature in 

the world, the Elizabethan Drama. What the long infancy of 

her stage had lacked was an example of form, of art: and 

Lyly gave it. It was seized upon by men of more splendid 

talents than he, of younger years, of mind uncramped by the 

learning and the toils which had produced it in himself; and 

the world, with the detestable complacency of the self-protective 

creature, accepted the supreme service and speedily 

forgot its benefactor. Later scholars, working backwards from

PREFACE vii 

Shakespeare, found all before him, of course, much inferior. 

They included Lyly with Greene and Kyd and Marlowe and 

Peele as ' Predecessors,' and overlooked the not unimportant 

fact that he wrote before all the rest. It w r as natural enough. 

Before them lay the whole rich field: Lyly was only one 

among many ; one w hose work had been done in the half-light 

of dawn before the rising of the sun ; one, too, it must be 

admitted, whose immense merits and originality were further 

obscured by the surface-qualities, the artificiality and tedium, 

of his style. I appeal now to the thoughtful critic to study 

his plays along with my essay on ' Lyly as a Playwright,' and 

to judge if there is not far more dramatic credit due, and far 

more influence on Shakespeare attributable, to him than to 

Marlowe or any other of those with whom he has been customarily 

classed 1. 

As a poet I make no such claim for him. Spite of his 

authorship of two or three of the most graceful songs our 

drama can boast—an authorship which, if still unsusceptible 

of positive proof, is equally so of disproof—some of those in 

his plays, and others, pretty certainly his, which I have found 

elsewhere, stamp him as negligent, uncritical, or else as inadequately 

practised in the art; while he lacked altogether, in 

my judgement, ' those brave translunary things' so infinitely 

beyond technique, so far above mere grace or daintiness of 

fancy, of which the true poet is made. The poems I print as 

' doubtful' exhibit, however, a growing mastery ; some of the 

' Later Love-Poems' yield a positive, and many a qualified, 

pleasure ; I have given decided praise to some of the verse in 

The Woman ; and it is only fair to add that the worst of his 

youthful essays have been disinterred from MSS. or collections 

where his carelessness or his judgement left them to 

moulder, only as illustrating the growth and the limitations 

1 The reader will not suppose me to be speaking of power or beauty : I allude 

to foim, art, intelligence, the qualities of the French rather than the English 

mind. 

+

V1I1 PREFACE 

of one who has other and imperative claims on our literary 

respect. 

In a separate full discussion of the Text and Bibliography 

of Etiphucs (vol. i. 83-118) I have endeavoured to fix the 

number and order of the very numerous quarto editions of 

that book. 

On Euphuism (Essay, vol. i. 119-75) I have little to say 

that has not already been said by others. My aim has been 

rather to summarize and condense, than to enlarge a discussion 

that has already grown unwieldy. I have been much aided 

in my treatment by the lucid and elaborate essay of Mr. C. G. 

Child in Miinchencr Beitrage; and I have appended to vol. i 

a brief note on Sentence-structure in Euphues, deprecating 

what I deem the existing tendency to too curious a consideration 

of this aspect of Lyly's work. To the criticism of the 

book, however, as the first great example of artistic prose and 

the earliest English novel, I hope I have added something ; 

and I have explored, more thoroughly than has been hitherto 

attempted, the question of sources, showing, for example, in 

detail how exactly Euphuism, save in the building of the 

long sentences, was anticipated by Pettie, and tracing many 

borrowings or reminiscences from other works, contemporary 

or classical. Never before has the attempt been made to 

annotate the Two Parts of Euphues, a work which bristles 

with quotations, proverbs, and allusions of every kind; and 

Fairholt, who did supply some useful notes to the Plays, 

generally abandoned this exercise of verification and huntingdown 

to his successor. Such tracking down of matters to 

which the text usually furnished no clue has formed by far 

the most arduous part of my task, and, next to my endeavour 

to give Lyly his rightful position as a playwright, that which 

I am chiefly glad to have accomplished ; though a later editor 

will still find points that have defied my search. Above all 

I deemed it desirable to ascertain with as much precision as 

possible the limits of my author's debt to Pliny and Plutarch.

PREFACE IX 

Investigation shows that the majority of his natural-history 

allusions are definitely assignable to the former ; the majority 

of his historical allusions, and several long passages besides the 

Ephctbus tractate, to the latter ; but some of his history comes 

from Pliny or other sources; and some of his natural history 

from Plutarch or Aelian or Bartholomaeus Anglicus; while 

some striking events, and many unusual phenomena, are 

purely of his own invention. His proverbs are generally from 

John Heywood's collection, or from the Chiliades of Erasmus ; 

but often, I think, rather part of a folklore personally imbibed 

in youth. 

Further, the Notes, or the various Essays, call attention not 

only to some general points of practice wherein Lyly set the 

example to Shakespeare, but also to a great many Shakespeare 

parallels of phrase or idea, though not to all that I have 

observed. Though the note is seldom so worded, I make no 

doubt that the great majority of such are cases of imitation, 

adaptation, or unconscious reminiscence by Shakespeare, and 

not of mere coincidence. If any be inclined to except against 

such notification as superfluous or too frequent, I would urge 

that one of my chief objects is to show a closer, fuller, more 

vital and more detailed connexion between the work of the 

two men than has hitherto been shown; and, further, that the 

Baconian heresy, sensationally attractive in itself, maintained 

by some honest folk, and by some other folk anxious to get 

on, has derived so much plausibility from Shakespeare's rustic 

origin and want of full education as renders it especially 

desirable to adduce all that may make more credible the 

sudden marvel of his great achievement. 

In addition to the general essay on Lyly's work as a playwright 

(vol. ii. 230-300), I have prefixed to each Play a brief 

Introduction, dealing with such matters as the state of the text, 

date, materials, treatment of the Unities, &c. For all except 

Mother Bombie I am able to show some definite, if only

X 

PREFACE 

partial, source not hitherto pointed out 1 , though in this 

matter Lyly is distinguished rather by his independence. In 

a long note immediately following the text of Gallathea 

(vol. ii. 473-85), I have discussed the question of his probable 

debt to some particular Italian works; and I have written 

a separate essay in revision of Halpin's view of the Courtallegory 

underlying the play of Endimion (vol. iii. pp. 81-103). 

As regards the Life, too, I have, I hope, made some considerable 

additions to former knowledge; fixing Boxley near 

Maidstone with tolerable certainty as Lyly's paternal home 

or birthplace (cf. pp. 4-5, 384-5) 5 ascertaining the precise 

post he occupied in the Revels Office and the probable dates 

of his tenure of it, besides gathering other details connected 

with the routine of duty within the Office itself; giving a 

brief account of the Marprelate Controversy and of Lyly's 

connexion with Nash in that affair ; setting at rest the vexed 

question of the dates of his two Petitions to the Queen; and 

printing seven autograph letters never before included in his 

biography, one of which (from the Cotton MSS.) I owe to 

the generous courtesy of Mons. A. G. Feuillerat, lecturer at 

Rennes University, while the rest are derived from the Hatfield 

MSS., with the exception of one, to which Dr. Bloxam 

gave a reference, among the State Papers in the Record Office. 

I regret that much of this new matter must be sought rather 

in the Biographical Appendix (vol. i. pp. 377-401) than in 

the Life itself, which was printed off a year ago, before I 

had attained to present knowledge; but except as regards 

his entry of the Office in 1588 rather than 1585, the deferring 

of the Petitions to 1598 and 1601, the discovery of a 

brother of the author, chaplain of the Savoy, and the probability 

of Lyly's receipt of some grant before his death, the 

1 Hense indicated the Ovidian origin of the two stones of which Midas is composed, 

and of that of Erisichthon and Protea in Loves Metamorphosi.

PREFACE xi 

conclusions of the Life remain unaltered (see Chronological 

Summary, pp. 398-9). 

Further, I have to introduce to the reader as Lyly's a 

certain number of Speeches or Entertainments (vol. i. 403- 

507) dating 1590-2, 160o, and 1602, which serve to illustrate 

his occupations in connexion with the Revels Office, and to 

enlarge somewhat the circle of his acquaintance. Nearly all 

of them were printed anonymously in his lifetime, and found 

their way later into Nichols' Progresses of Queen Elizabeth; 

none has ever been claimed for Lyly, though one or two of 

them have been generally assigned elsewhere. They are of no 

great literary weight, but thoroughly Lylian and (with brief 

and partial exceptions noted in their places) undoubtedly his, 

as will, I believe, be allowed by him who reads the Introduction 

to them and verifies the marginal references to his 

other works. Also I present as his a very respectable but 

anonymous Funeral Oration on Queen Elizabeth (vol. i. 

pp. 509-16) ; and some distressing lines (vol. iii. 427-32) on 

the suppression of the Babington plot, which I much doubt 

whether I shall, or should, be forgiven for discovering. The 

list of my additions to Lyly's text is completed by the abovementioned 

collection of unsigned Foems (vol. iii. 433-502) 

from contemporary printed or manuscript sources, the references 

appended to which, though I have labelled them collectively 

as 'doubtful,' will I think facilitate and in some cases compel 

the reader's acceptance. Among them is The Bee, hitherto 

assigned to Essex. 

I have included The Maydes Metamorphosis, though I believe 

Lyly merely added some portions to this play in preparing 

it for performance by the Paul's Boys ; and also A Whip for 

an Ape and some of the doggrel in Mar-Martine, to which 

he has unfortunately a better claim.

xii PREFACE 

Turning to the pleasant task of acknowledgement, besides 

what I inevitably owe to those who have previously printed 

work upon Lyly—among whom I would particularly distinguish 

Professors Arber, Landmann, Steinhauser, C. G. 

Child, and G. P. Baker—I am indebted to many others for 

special suggestions or helpful kindness during the prosecution 

of my task ; to Mr. John Murray for full reproduction permitted 

of the contents of my Quarterly article of January, 1896; to 

the Committee of the Hampstead Public Library for the free 

loan during four years of the very valuable Morley copy 

of Euphnes, which belongs to that institution; to Lord Salisbury 

for kind permission to copy five letters of Lyly among 

the Hatfield MSS. and to photograph two of them, and to 

Mr. R, T. Gunton, his private secretary and librarian, for 

taking the copies (one of the letters was of his suggestion) 

and making some other search at my request;. to Mr. F. J. H. 

Jenkinson, the Cambridge University Librarian, for most 

courteous hospitality and assistance during one of my visits ; 

to Dr. Sinker, librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, for 

opportunities of collation ; to Professor Littledale, of Cardiff, 

for some notes of his own on the plays, freely placed at my 

disposal ; to Mr. P. A. Daniel for one or two similar notes ; 

to Prof. M. Sampson, of Indiana University, for some remarks 

on Euphuism ; to Mr. R. J. Whitwell for a suggestion; to 

Mons. A. G. Feuillerat, of Rennes University, for the Cotton 

letter above mentioned, whose own forthcoming critical survey 

of Lyly's life and works I expect with peculiar interestl; to 

various incumbents of churches in London or in Kent, whom 

I have pestered with inquiries about their Parish Registers ; 

to the officials of the British Museum, and especially to 

the Superintendent of the MS. room ; to Mr. Salisbury of 

the Record Office for unvaryingly patient and indispensable 

help in deciphering old documents ; to Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson, 

1 I was pleased to find that M. Feuillerat had, like myself, decided that Tellus 

in Endimion must be identified with Mary Queen of Scots.

PREFACE xiii 

Bodley's Librarian, and Mr. F. Madan ; to the Rev. H. A. 

Wilson, librarian of Lyly's college of Magdalen, and to one 

or two other librarians of Oxford colleges; to Professor 

Robinson Ellis and to the Bishop of Oxford, for suggestions; 

lastly and chiefly to the Printer, and to the various officials 

of the Clarendon Press, who have given such minute attention 

to the proof-sheets, and from whom I have gratefully 

accepted an occasional correction or suggestion. With Professor 

York Powell, especially, I have been in consultation 

throughout as to the form and scope of the work ; and a 

judicious squeeze, kindly imparted by himself, has wrung 

some drops of superfluous humour from my Notes. To all, 

and any others who have rendered me help now momentarily 

forgotten, my best thanks. 

I part from my long and self-imposed task with some 

regret, in spite of the heavy toil it has cost and the very 

serious sacrifices that such work, under present conditions, 

must involve. I am never likely to find either the patience, 

or the means, for another such. Even here I am troubled 

by the sense that there is more yet to be discovered about 

Lyly, and that more time might profitably have been spent 

on the appraisement of his striking bulk of work even than 

I have given. Too much of my four years has been consumed 

in mere collation, in search too often resultless, in the 

finding, noting, and renumbering of a host of cross-references. 

I trust this expenditure, but half-voluntary, of ' stupid 

industry' may make for utility and permanence ; and that 

in other respects this edition, much needed, long meditated, 

and now at length completed, may not be found to fall short 

of the rapidly-rising standard of present-day Elizabethan 

scholarship. 

R. W. B. 

UPPER NORWOOD, 

Sept. 20, 1902.

CONTENTS 

VOLUME I 

PAGE 

GATE OF THE REVELS OFFICE Frontispiece 

LIFE OF JOHN LYLY I 

EUPHUES: 

DISCUSSION OF THE TEXT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY . . 83 

LIST OF EDITIONS 100 

TITLES, &c 106 

ESSAY ON EUPHUES AND EUPHUISM . . .119 

EUPHUES—THE ANATOMY OF WYT (TEXT) . .177 

„ „ „ „ „ (NOTES) . . .327 

BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX 377 

ENTERTAINMENTS (INTRODUCTION) 404 

„ (TEXT) 410 

A FUNERAL ORATION 509 

NOTES: 

ENTERTAINMENTS 517 


NOTE ON SENTENCE-STRUCTURE IN EUPHUES . . .539 

ERRATA AND ADDENDA TO THE THREE VOLUMES . . 542 

VOLUME II 

TITLE-PAGE OF EUPHUES, PT. I Frontispiece 

EUPHUES AND HIS ENGLAND (TEXT) I 

THE PLAYS : 

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 230 

ESSAY ON LYLY AS A PLAYWRIGHT . . . . 231 

CAMPASPE (INTRODUCTION) 302 

(TEXT) 313 

SAPHO AND PHAO (INTRODUCTION) . . . . 362 

(TEXT) 369 

GALLATHEA (INTRODUCTION) 418 

(TEXT) 429 

NOTE ON ITALIAN INFLUENCE 473 

NOTES: 

EUPHUES AND HIS ENGLAND 486 

CAMPASPE 540 

SAPHO AND PHAO 554 

GALLATHEA 564

xvi CONTENTS 

VOLUME III 

AUTOGRAPH LETTER OF LYLY (Feb. 4, 1602-3) . . Frontispiece 

THE PLAYS (CONTINUED) : PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY MATTER OF BLOUNT'S EDITION . . 1 

ENDIMION (INTRODUCTION) 6 

(TEXT) 17 

ESSAY ON THE ALLEGORY IN . . 8 1 

MIDAS (INTRODUCTION) 106 

(TEXT) . 113 

MOTHER BOMBIE (INTRODUCTION) 164 

(TEXT) 171 

THE WOMAN IN THE MOONE (INTRODUCTION) . . 229 

„ „ „ (TEXT). . . .239 

LOVES METAMORPHOSIS (INTRODUCTION) . . .289 

(TEXT) 299 

THE MAYDES METAMORPHOSIS (DOUBTFUL)— 

(INTRODUCTION) 333 

(TEXT) 341 

ANTI-MARTINIST WORK, &C.: 

PAPPE WITH AN HATCHET (INTRODUCTION) . . 388 

„ „ „ (TEXT) . . . . 393 

A WHIP FOR AN APE (INTRODUCTION) . . . . 415 

„ „ (TEXT) 417 

MAR-MARTINE (PART OF) 423 

THE TRIUMPHS OF TROPHES 427 

POEMS (DOUBTFUL): 

LIST OF SOURCES 433 

INTRODUCTION 434 

TEXT 44 8 

NOTES: 

ENDIMION 503 

MIDAS 519 

MOTHER BOMBIE 537 

THE WOMAN IN THE MOONE 554 

LOVES METAMORPHOSIS 563 

THE MAYDES METAMORPHOSIS 569 

PAPPE WITH AN HATCHET 573 

A WHIP FOR AN APE, &c 589 

INDEX OF FIRST LINES OF SONGS OR POEMS . . . 592 

GLOSSARY TO THE THREE VOLUMES 596 

GENERAL INDEX TO THE THREE VOLUMES . . . .605

LIFE OF JOHN LYLY 

JOHN LYLY was born between Oct. 9, 1553 and Oct. 8, 1554. 

These inclusive limits are obtained from the date (Oct. 8, 1571) of 

his matriculation at Magdalen College, Oxford, some two years after 

he actually entered the University1. At matriculation he is entered 

as of ' 17' years of age, the year named on such an occasion being 

that last completed. Since on Oct. 8, 1571 he has completed 

seventeen years, 

Oct. 9, 1570 is the earliest possible date for the completion of his 

seventeenth year, and Oct. 9, 1569 the earliest possible for its 

commencement. 


sixteenth year, and Oct. 9, 1568 the earliest possible for its 

commencement. 


first year, and Oct. 9, 1553 the earliest possible for his birth. 

On the other hand— 

Oct. 8, 1571 is the latest possible date for the completion of his 

seventeenth year, and Oct. 8, 1570 the latest possible for its 

commencement. 


sixteenth year, and Oct. 8, 1569 the latest possible for its 

commencement. 


first year, and Oct. 8, 1554 the latest possible for his birth. 

1 Registrant Universitatis Oxoniensis (Oxford, 1887), vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 51, gives 

among the list of those matriculated as members of Magdalen College in 1571, 

' Lyllie, John, Kent, pleb. f. 17.' The list is taken from 'Matriculation Register 

P.' The date Oct. 8 depends on Dr. J. R. Bloxam's Registers of Magd. Coll. In 

vol. iv. p. 186 and elsewhere that date is given as that of a general matriculation of 

the College. Dr. Bloxam wrote to Prof. Arber in or before 1868 : ' Wood was 

probably right when he supposes Lyily to have entered College m 1569, for, as 

1571 was the first year of matriculation, and all the members of the College, old 

and young, were matriculated together, the matriculation would not fix the date 

of entrance. Lylly might have been a poor Scholar, but there is no reason to 

suppose that he was either a Demy or Cleik.' (Arber's Reprint of Euphues, p. 3.) 

Elsewhere in his printed volumes, however, Bloxam mentions an earlier matriculation 

en bloc, in 1564. 

BOND 1 

B

2 LIFE OF JOHN LYLY 

Wood's statement, that when he ' became a student in Magdalen 

College in the beginning of 1569' he was 'aged 16 or thereabouts 1,' 

does not conflict with the upward limit, being applicable enough to 

a man who, during all that part of 1569 which preceded Oct. 9, may 

have been in his sixteenth year: and his mention of' the beginning 

of 1569' may be regarded as some indication that Lyly had 

commenced his sixteenth year before the close of 1568, that is 

before March 24, 1568-9, and therefore that his birth occurred 

before March 24, 1553-4. 

In the absence of any but the most scanty details available from 

reliable sources for Lyly's early years, it has been natural to turn 

to his romance of Euphues, We cannot of course draw any absolute 

inferences from a source where fact, if present at all, must necessarily 

be subject to the changing and colouring process that would best 

suit the author's ideal purpose; yet the probability of an autobiographical 

element in the book is considerable, and it is confirmed, 

as Mr. Baker 2 points out, by the opening of the dedication of the 

Second Part. 

' The first picture that Phydias the first Paynter shadowed, was the 

portraiture of his owne person, saying thus : if it be well, I will paint many 

besides Phydias, if ill, it shall offend none but Phydias. 

In the like manner fareth it with me (Right Honourable) who neuer 

before handling the pensill, did for my fyrst counterfaite, coulour mine 

owne Euphues, being of this minde, that if it wer lyked, I would draw more 

besides Euphues, if loathed, grieue none but Euphues.' 

Accepting this source, then, for what it is worth, we may find 

suggestions both in Euphues' account of his stay in England, 

especially in the Glasse for Europe near the end of the book, and in 

the story Lyly puts into the mouth of the old courtier Fidus. There 

is no need to press the statement that he was ' scarse borne' at the 

time of Mary's accession 3 , July 6, 1553, to the extent of requiring an 

earlier date for his birth than Oct. 9 of that year, which we have just 

fixed as the earliest possible. But the following details given by 

Fidus are sufficiently in accord with the little we know to claim some 

attention. 

1 Passage quoted in full below, p. 7. 

2 Endymion . . . by John Lyly, M.A. Edited with ... a Biographical Introduction 

by George P. Baker, . . . New York, 1894, p. ix. 

' Vol. ii. p. 206,1. 14: ' The elder sister the Princes Marie, succeeded as next heire 

to the crowne .. . touching whose life I can say little bicause I was scarse borne, 

and what others say, of me shalbe forborne.'

PARENTAGE 3 

' I was borne in the wylde of Kent 1, of honest Parents, and worshipfull, 

whose tender cares, (if the fondnesse of parents may be so termed) prouided 

all things euen from my very cradell, vntil their graues, that might either 

bring me vp in good letters, or make me heire to great lyuings. I (without 

arrogancie be it spoken) was not inferiour in wit to manye, which finding 

in my selfe, I flattered my selfe, but in y e ende, decerned my selfe: For 

being of the age of .xx. ycarcs, there was no trade or kinde of lyfe that 

either fitted my humour or serued my tourne, but the Court: thinking 

that place the onely meanes to clymbe high, and sit sure: Wherin 

I followed the vaine of young Souldiours, who iudge nothing sweeter then 

warre til they feele the weight. I was there enterteined as well by the great 

friends my father made, as by mine own forwardnesse, where it being now 

but Honnie Moone, I endeauoured to courte it with a grace, (almost past 

grace,) laying more on my backe then my friendes could wel beare, hauing 

many times a braue cloke and a thredbare purse 2.' 

Fidus continues:— 

' Who so conuersant with the Ladyes as I ? who so pleasaunt ? who more 

prodigall? In-somuch as I thought the time lost, which was not spent either 

in their company with delight, or for their company in letters. Among all 

the troupe of gallant Gentle-men, 1 singled out one (in whome I mysliked 

nothing but his grauitie) that aboue all I meant to trust' 

—and thereupon Fidus details the wise advice given by this gentleman 

as to his bearing. In due course he falls in love with a beautiful girl 

attached to the Court, to whom he gives the fictitious name of Iffida, 

and who is described as paying a country-visit near Fidus' own home : 

' And in this iourney I founde good Fortune so fauourable, yt hir abiding 

was within two miles of my Fathers mantion house, my parents 

being of great familiaritie with the Gentleman where my Mda lay' 

(Vol. ii. p. 54,1. 3). Returning home in pursuit of her, Fidus finds her, 

1 This seems to be the origin of Cooper's definite statement (Athenae Cantabrigienses, 

ii. 325) that Lyly himself was ' born in the Weald of Kent,' a term applicable 

to the whole wide valley between the ranges of the North and South Downs, and 

including the towns of Tonbridge, Ashford and Maidstone. 

2 Euphues and his England, vol. ii. p. 49. I have italicized one or two expressions 

that may possess autobiographical significance. The reader should compare with 

this statement of Fidus, which entirely tallies with what we know of Lyly, the 

later mention by Euphues of his own introduction at Court, in the Glasse, 

p. 198, 1. 24 : 'It was my fortune to be acquaIted with certaine English Gentlemen, 

which brought mee to the court, wher when I came, I was driuen into a maze to 

behold the lusty & braue gallants, the beutiful & chast Ladies, y° rare & 

godly orders, so as I could not tel whether I should most comend vertue or 

brauery. At the last coming oftner thether, then it beseemed one of my degree, yet 

not so often as they desired my company, I began to prye after theyr manners, 

natures, and lyues, and that which followeth I saw, where-of who so doubtcth, 

I will sweare.' 

B 2


with other ladies, a guest at his father's house; and from his description 

of the evening it is clear that Iffida, though 'the best in the 

companye, and at all assayes [at all events] too good for me' 

(p. 58,1. 14), is not separated from himself by any marked social gulf. 

Fidus' father hunts (p. 63, 1. 27), and has a taste for social pastimes; 

and in the contest of wits between Iffida and Fidus supports the lady, 

' whether it were to flatter hir, or for feare to offend hir, or that he 

loued money himselfe better then either wit or beautie [the three 

subjects of discussion]. And our conclusions thus ended, she 

accompanied with hir gentlewomen and other hir seruaunts, went to 

hir Vncles, hauing taried a day longer with my father, then she 

appoynted' (p. 72, 1. 25). Though Fidus is anxious to conceal his 

passion from his father (p. 69,1. 23), it is clear from all this, and from 

her subsequent coming to nurse him in his illness, that they are 

approximately of the same social position; indeed Fidus, in an 

angry moment, allows himself to say, ' If I should compare my bloud 

with thy birth, I am as noble: if my wealth with thine, as rich' 

(p. 66, 1. 10). Without insisting on a literal correspondence of the 

fiction with fact, we shall perhaps be justified in concluding that our 

author, described in the Oxford Register as plebeii Jilius, was the 

son of a substantial yeoman, whose wealth and degree of cultivation 

had raised him into the class of the landed gentry. So much at 

least is inferable from Lyly's known connexion, before his book 

had made him famous, with two important patrons, Burleigh, to wit, 

and Lord de la Warre, to the latter of whom he dedicates it. 

His precise birthplace must still remain uncertain. Tonbridge 

and Ashford, both within the Weald of Kent, are barely alluded to 

in Mother Bombte, his one play of contemporary life; as also is 

Canterbury, while 'the scene is laid at Rochester—though neither 

of these can be included in the Weald. The parish register of 

Tonbridge, which is older than 1553, yields nothing to help us; that 

of Ashford only dates from 1570; and in that of Maidstone, also 

just within the Weald, there is, the vicar informs me, hiatus valde 

deflendus from 1551 to 1558, which covers the possible period for 

Lyly's birth. There is no prima facie reason, perhaps, why he should 

be born at any of these towns rather than at one of the numerous 

villages scattered over the county: but the Record Office has 

supplied me with some reason for preferring Maidstone, in an old 

Crown lease, endorsed '13th Feby xiiij Eliz.' i.e. Feb. 13, 1571-2, 

which leases a farmer's barn, garden, and about eighteen acres of

BOYHOOD 5 

land, part of the Manor of Boxley in Kent (a village 2 1 miles to the 

north-east of Maidstone), for twenty-one years to William Lyllye, at 

a rent of £20 per annum; he to be responsible for repairs, for 

which he may take materials from the woods and ground 1. Here 

at least is a Lyly living at or near Maidstone in 1572, within such 

easy reach (34 miles) as would invite the trips made from the capital 

by Fidus or by Lyly in 1582, and occupying apparently much the 

same social position as is required by the evidence for our author's 

father—a yeoman farmer, adding to the land he farms and paying 

the substantial rent of £20 for his new acquisition 2 . Boxley parish 

register only commences in 1558 ; that of Maidstone, where the farmer 

may quite as probably have lived, exhibits the unfortunate gap 

above mentioned ; so that we are cut off from our best chance of 

obtaining the desired entry of Lyly's birth. By charter of Queen 

Elizabeth, dated Dec. 4, 1559, Maidstone had recovered the franchise 

it had forfeited for its share in Wyatt's rebellion in 1554, and returned 

two members to Parliament. The same charter empowered the 

Corporation to make regulations for the government of the masters 

and scholars of the new school, for which land had been acquired 

in the time of Edward VI. The earliest schoolmaster was Thomas 

Cole 8 . If my surmise is correct, it would be here that our alter 

Tullius Anglorum imbibed his rudiments; and I find one slight 

confirmatory circumstance in Hasted's mention of a valuable vein of 

fullers' earth at Boxley, much of which was in 1702 exported for 

use of clothiers abroad, a mention which recalls Prisms' fullingmill 

in Mother Bombie 4 . 

The only other contemporary of the name mentioned by Hasted is 

Elizabeth Lilley, wife of Richard Shakerly of Brooke Court or Borough 

Court in Ditton, Kent, who bore to him a son John about 1600 and 

also a daughter Mary, and who may have been our author's sister 

or his niece : one of his own daughters was named Elizabeth. 

The other Lillies whom Hasted mentions are of the eighteenth 

century. 

Some dozen contemporary Wills of various Lyllies or Lillies are 

preserved in Somerset House, but their perusal affords nothing that 

1 Exchequer Augmentations, Transcripts of Leases, 14 Eliz., vol. xv. No. 82. 

3 i.e. about £160 the purchasing power of money in those days being roughly 

eight times what it is to-day. See Mr. Sidney Lee's Life of Shakespeare, pp. 3, 

197. 

3 Hasted's History of Kent (4 vols., 1778-99), ii. 116. 

* Act i. sc. 3 ; ii. 5; v. 3.


can certainly be relied on as pointing to our author1. Among them 

is that of George Lyllye, prebendary of Canterbury, proved 26 July, 

1559. He was the son of William, the famous grammarian; and 

like him, and our author, an alumnus of Magdalen College, Oxford 2 . 

The Will mentions his brothers Peter and Jacob, and his sisters 

Margaret and Jane ; but nothing of any William or John. Another 

representative of the name is Edmund Lilly, Fellow of Magdalen 

from 1564-1579, a person of much independence of view, who 

subsequently became Vice-Chancellor, and Master of Balliol College. 

Had he been of kin to our author, however, he would probably 

have assisted his candidature for a Magdalen fellowship, which 

occurred during his tenure of his own; but Lyly expressly says that 

he has no aid but Burleigh's to rely on 3 . 

I find, then, as sole result of much research, a person of sufficiently 

close correspondence to Fidus' father, and to Lyly's circumstances, 

in William Lyllye, yeoman of Boxley or Maidstone in Kent. Of 

his mother Lyly makes no special mention, nor of any brother or 

sister. 

With his transfer to Oxford we get upon surer ground. He 

entered Magdalen College as a commoner probably in the spring of 

1569, when he was just about sixteen years old; and since in 1574 

he describes himself as Burleigh's alumnus 4 , and owns obligations to 

him, it is possible that he owed his University career to Burleigh's 

assistance. For that career we have, besides the Register's record 

of his degrees, B.A. April 27, 1573 and M.A. June 1, 15755, the 

report of Anthony a Wood some hundred and twenty years later 

1 Among them is a judicial decision on the appeal of Mary Lillie of Bromley in 

Kent, in 1604, against the Will of her fust cousin, Geoffrey Lyllie, draper, of 

St. Sepulchre's parish, London. 

The Will of Edward Lyllie, husbandman of Gilden Morden in Cambridgeshire, 

which is dated 1599, leaves small legacies of £4, and shares in debts due, to his 

brothers John and Richard Lyllie, and other sums to his brothers Henry and 

Thomas Lyllie ; while • to my mother Lyllie' he leaves ' twenty shillinges.' It is 

possible, of course, that this Edward was a brother of the author, and that their 

mother was still living in 1599 ; but more probably the John Lyllie here mentioned 

is the yeoman of Bramford in Suffolk, who on May 14, 1590 claims a messuage and 

lands in Bramford under a Will of his maternal grandmother, Johan Marsh. 

(Proceedings in Chancery', Eliz., vol. ii. p. 177, L. 1. 11, No. 61.) 

2 Wood punningly remarks that the College 'was seldom or neuer without 

a Lilye' (Ath. Oxon. i. 302, ed. Bliss). 

8 See below, p. 14. * Below, p. 13. 

5 Registrum Universitatis Oxoniensis (Oxford, 1887), vol. ii. part iii. p. 27, 

in the register of Degrees occurs— 

'Lillie, John; supplpcat] B.A. 1 Apr., adm[ittitur] 27 Apr. 1573, det[erminat] 

I573; suppl. M.A. 19 May, lic[entiatur] 1 June 1575, inc[ipit] 1575.'

AT OXFORD 7 

(1691), some spiteful remarks of Gabriel Harvey in a polemical 

pamphlet of 1589 1, and further evidence afforded by Lyly's Latin 

letter of 1574 and by the First Part of Euphues. Wood writes as 

follows:— 

'John Lylie, or Lylly, a Kentish man born, became a student in Magd. 

coll. in the beginning of 1569, aged 16, or thereabouts, and was afterwards, 

as I conceive, either one of the Demies or Clerks of that house ; but 

always averse to the crabbed studies of Logic and Philosophy. For so it 

was that his genie being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of Poetry (as 

if Apollo had given to him a wreath of his own Bays, without snatching or 

strugling,) did in a manner neglect Academical studies, yet not so much 

but that he took the degrees in Arts, that of Master being compleated 

1575. At which time, as he was esteemed in the University a noted Wit, 

so afterwards was he in the Court of Q. Elizabeth, where he was also 

reputed a rare Poet, witty, comical, and facetious V 

Harvey's remarks apply to Lyly's character in general, rather than 

to his Oxford career in particular, of which perhaps he knew little 

except by hearsay long after it was over3: and his delay in publishing 

them, together with his reluctance, perhaps affected, to 

break with Lyly altogether, may indicate a consciousness that they 

were exaggerated. He vaguely hints at some discreditable relations 

4 , alludes to 'his horning, gaming, fooling and knaving 5', and 

1 The Aduertisemcnt for Papp-Hatchett and Martin Marprelate is dated 

' At Trinitie hall: this fift of Nouember: 1589', though it first appeared in print 

as the Second Book of Pierce's Supererogation, 1593. 

2 Athenae Oxonienses, 1691, fol., vol. i. col. 256 (ed. Bliss, 1813, i. 676). Wood 

goes on to enumerate Lyly's works, including The Maides Metamorphosis and 

(wrongly) A Warning for Fair Women, and professing himself unable to identify 

his alleged Marprelate contribution. He adds : ' What other Books, Comedies, or 

Trag. our author hath written, I cannot find, nor when he dyed, or where buried, 

only that he lived till towards the latter end of Q. Elizabeth, if not byond, for he 

was in being in 1597, when the Woman in the Moon was published.' 

3 Harvey, then Master of Trinity Hall, M.A. and LL.D. of Cambridge, is 

licensed D.C.L. of Oxford July 13, 1585 (Registrum Univ. Oxon. vol. ii. part ii. 

p. 349). His personal acquaintance with Lyly seems to have been formed in London 

about 1578. See below, pp. 17-18. 

4 Pierce 's Supererogation, reprinted in Brydges' Archaica, vol. ii. p. 135 (or 

Grosart's ed. of Harvey's Works, vol. ii. p. 210): 'It is somebody's fortune 

to be haunted with back friends ; and I could report a strange dialogue betwixt the 

Clerk of Backchurch and the Chaunter of Pancridge that would make the better 

vizard of the two to blush.' ' Back friends ' is equivalent to back-biters, unavowed 

enemies who pretend friendship ; and by ' the Clerk of Backchurch' Harvey means 

that Lyly is a leader among scandal-mongers. If, however, Lyly is to be identified 

with ' the Chaunter of Pancridge,' the passage shows that on his first coming to 

London he turned his musical talent to account. Pancridge is St. Pancras, as in 

Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub, ii. 1. 

5 Ibid. p. 84 (ed. Grosart, ii. 129).


stigmatizes Pappe as 'the fruit of an addle and lewd wit, long 

since dedicated to a dissolute and desperate licentiousness V And 

on an earlier page he says :— 

' They were much deceived in him at Oxford and in the Savoy, when 

Master Absalon lived, that took him only for a dapper and deft companion, 

or a pert conceited youth, that had gathered together a few pretty sentences, 

and could handsomely help young Euphues to an old simile, and never 

thought him any such mighty doer at the sharp 2', 

i. e. such a controversialist, ' the sharp' being a duelling-sword as 

distinguished from the blunted foil. Again:— 

' He hath not played the Vicemaster of Poules, and the Foolemaster of 

the Theater for naughtes: himselfe a mad lad as ever twang'd, never 

troubled with any substance of witt, or circumstance of honestie, sometime 

the fiddlesticke of Oxford, now the very bable of London 3.' 

Nash in Haue with you to Saffron Waldron (1596) tells us that 

Lyly particularly resented this Oxford allusion : ' With a blacke 

sant he meanes shortly to bee att his chamber window, for calling 

him the Fiddlestick of Oxford': but his own admission in 

Euphues (1578)—'I haue euer thought so supersticiously of wit, 

that I feare I haue committed Idolatry against wisdom 4,' and his 

representation of Euphues' youthful attitude at Naples, warrant us in 

concluding that Harvey's report is substantially correct. We shall 

be tolerably safe in supposing that his Oxford life was marked by 

a madcap temper, some disregard of the authorities, and some 

neglect of prescribed studies. 

The actual curriculum in force during his undergraduate days 

cannot be fixed with absolute certainty. The successive changes in 

religion, involving the ejectment or voluntary departure of many 

scholars, and a visitation of the plague in 1563, had greatly disorganized 

the University. Wood reports 5 that in 1561 there were 

'few Proceeders' or candidates for a degree. Spurred by royal 

injunction the University in 1564 set about reforming itself under 

its new Chancellor, the Earl of Leicester; special care being taken 

to prevent the too liberal granting of dispensations (i.e. exemptions 

from compliance with the statutes) or graces (admissions to a degree), 

especially in Divinity, Law or Physic, without good evidence that 

the requisite exercises had been performed 6 . These three faculties, 

1 

Pierce's Supererogation, in Archaica, ii. p. 141, or ed. Grosart, ii. 220. 

2 Ibid. p. 84 (ed. Grosart, ii. 128). 3 Ibid. p. 137 (ed. Grosart, ii. 212). 

4 Euphues, p. 196. 

5 History and Antiquities of Oxford, ii. p. 147. 

6 Ibid. p. 153.

COURSE OF STUDY 9 

on all of which Lyly touches in his ' Cooling Card to Philautus1,' were 

almost invariably preceded by the two degrees in the Faculty of Arts, 

in which the subjects studied were—for the B.A., Grammar, Logic 

and Rhetoric; for the M.A., Natural and Moral Philosophy. Four 

years' residence from the time of admission was necessary before the 

B.A. could be taken; and three more between the B.A. and M.A., 

the latter involving its separate course of study, and not granted, as 

to-day, after a lapse of two years, without fresh examination, on the 

mere payment of fees 2 . On his entry at Magdalen College Lyly 

would probably be entrusted to the care of the ' instructor in grammar,' 

or Master of the College School. He does not appear in the 

list of choristers or clerks, whose names are preserved from 1553 

onwards; but his musical taste suggests the possibility that he 

may have been one, at least for a time. Wood tells us that 

William Camden, the antiquary, came to Magdalen as a chorister or 

1 Euphues, p. 251. 

2 The regulations governing a student's life at Oxford during the fifty years 1570- 

1620 are lucidly detailed by Mr. Andrew Claik in the 'Introductions' which fill 

vol. ii. part 1. of the Registrum Universitatis Oxoniensis (Oxford, 1887): but he 

lays stress at the outset on the changes, formal and tacit, that University institutions 

were at this time undergoing, and the progress he describes is supposed as that of 

' a student coming to the Univeisity in any year between 1590 and 1620.' For the 

statements made above see pp. 7, 13, 66. On p. 96 Mr. Clark quotes a most 

important list of lecturers, or * regent-masters,' whose duty it was to deliver the 

ordinary lectures of the University course in 1563; which list is, he tells us, 'the 

fullest notice we have at this period of the subjects of these lectures ; nine lectures 

with (practically) three lectuiers in each subject.' The subjects (1 omit the lecturers) 

are as follows : ' 1563, lcctorum ordinariorum designatio. Metaphysics .. . Moral 

Philosophy . . . Natural Philosophy . . . Astronomy . . . Geometry . . . Music . . . 

Arithmetic. . . Logic . . . Rhetoric . . . Grammar . . .' I append one or two of the 

details reproduced by Mr. Clark, p. 98, as bearing on the dislocation of studies during 

the time of Lyly's residence. ' 18 Apr. 1567, a committee was appointed to determine 

"tempus et modum legendi et audiendi ordinarias lectiones."—23 June 1567, every 

" lector ordinarius " was to be fined 12d. for each " lectio " omitted to which he was 

bound, of which Sd. was to go to the University and 4d. to the proctors.—7 Dec. 

1571, a committee was appointed to provide " de lectionibus ordinariis (ut vocant) " 

for next Term, as there had been no comitia in 1571 [at which meeting, towards the 

end of the Summer Term, the lecturers for the ensuingyear should have been appointed]. 

9 Feb. 1571-2, the report of that committee having been received, Convocation 

decreed: (1) That all masters created in the last comitia are to remain regents 

till the admission to Congregation of the masters created in the next comitia. 

(2) But, of these masters, four only (selected by the proctors) shall lecture, 

beginning on 25 Feb. and lecturing, on every " dies legibilis " till next comitia, in 

Dialectic, Rhetoric, Astronomy and Philosophy. (3) That the proctors shall pay 

each of them five shillings, to be collected " ab inceptoribus proxime futuris."— 

19 May, 1572, a committee was appointed to nominate persons " qui artes proximo 

termino publice profiteantur," "etad mercedem idoneam eisdem allocandam."— 

29 June, 1576, a committee was appointed to examine and correct the statutes 

41 de lectionibus publicis et exercitiis, and to report to Convocation. They made 

their report on 22 Oct. On 16 Nov. 1576, Convocation passed statutes "pro 

emendatione tam praelectorum quam auditorum negligentiae. " '


servitor in 1566, and perfected himself in grammar, learning at the 

College School under Thomas Cooper 1 ; on which Dr. Bloxam 

remarks 2 , ' Though his narpe does not appear in the annual list of 

choristers, he might have been one for a few months.' In or after 

his ninth Term the student would, in ordinary cases, have to dispute 

publicly in grammatical or logical subjects, once as opponent, and 

once as respondent; and after this initial {pro forma) disputation, 

would have to do so once a Term till he took the B.A. 3 Then 

would follow more study and disputation in utraque philosophia, i. e. 

Moral and Natural, preparatory to the M.A.; coupled with the 

delivery of some trial lectures intended to fit him to take a share, 

after the assumption of that degree, in the ordinary lecturing work of 

the University 4 . The M.A. taken, he might proceed to one of the 

higher faculties, Divinity, Law, or Physic. But there is no evidence 

that Lyly sought any higher degree than that of M.A., nor yet 

that he resided for the full seven years required by the statutes for 

that. Dispensations from residence were frequently granted by 

Congregation, occasionally for as long as two years, on grounds of 

the student's poverty, business, or illness; while the visitations of 

the plague sometimes necessitated his absence. Wood relates that 

in 1571 a violent plague led to the intermission of all ordinary and 

public lectures and exercises between April 26 and Trinity Term, 

a period subsequently extended till the last Monday in March 1572 ; 

and that Congregation decreed ' that all Exercises performed by the 

Oxonian Students in the Country (that is, in the rural Mansions belonging 

to the respective Colleges, or elsewhere where they shall think most 

fit to live together) should be esteemed as if done in the University 5 .' 

We have Lyly's own testimony to an absence of three years early in 

his University course in his address ' To the Gentlemen Scholers 6:— 

'Yet may 1 of all the rest most condemne Oxford of vnkindnes, of 

vice I cannot, who seemed to weane me before she brought me foorth, 

and to giue me boanes to gnaw, before I could get the teate to sucke. 

Wherin she played the nice mother in seding me into the country to 

nurse, where I tyred at a dry breast three yeares, and was at the last 

1 Afterwards Bishop of Winchester, author of the Admonition to the People of 

England, 1589, and the object of Marprelate attacks. He resigned the mastership of 

Magdalen School about March, 1567, to act as tutor to Sir Philip Sidney, so that we 

cannot claim him as Lyly's teacher. (Bloxam's Registers of Magd. Coll. vol. iii. 

pp. 116-7.) 

2 Registers of Magd. Coll. i. 17-28. 

s Registrum Univ. Oxon. ii. pt. i. pp. 21, 24. * Ibid. p. 66. 

5 Wood's History and Antiquities, ii. 170. 6 Euphues, p. 325.

THREE YEARS' ABSENCE? II 

enforced to weane my self. But it was destinie, for if I had not bene 

gathered from the tree in the budde, I should beeing blowne haue 

proued a blast, and as good it is to bee an addle egge as an idle bird.' 

The Rev. H. A. Wilson, the present librarian of Magdalen, in 

a most thoughtful and helpful letter of April 29, 1898, suggests to 

me that the phrase about 'sending me into the country to nurse,' 

like that of 'giuing me boanes to gnaw,' may be merely a metaphor 

for leaving him without proper tuition, or may refer to his being ' consigned 

in 1569 to the care of the grammar master till his matriculation.' 

But I feel it difficult to understand the passage save of 

a literal absence from the University. Wood's testimony to a general 

exodus caused by the plague affords us a sufficient reason for such 

absence, without our having to resort to the explanation that has 

been suggested of Lyly's 'rustication,' a punishment, according to 

Mr. Wilson, not in use at this date; and the latter affords us valuable 

confirmation in the statement—'I find that the College was at 

Brackley 1 in July, 1571, when the July election was held there; and 

that they returned to Oxford some time in 1572.' The migration of 

the College may well have occurred much earlier than this election in 

July, 1571, though not perhaps early enough to account for Lyly's 

' three yeares.' Another explanation may be that Lyly was, during 

the whole or part of this period, engaged in teaching; a means frequently 

employed by poor students to eke out their subsistence 

during a University course, and a ground on which ' dispensations' 

from the full term of residence were frequently granted 2 . There is 

no evidence that Lyly was in need of such assistance, but the acquisition 

of influential friends may have furnished as powerful a motive; 

and it is possible that some such tutorial work may have been the 

real origin of his connexion with Lord de la Warre3. 

But the passage quoted above seems at least to afford us evidence 

that he began his University career by idling. If he does not, like 

1 A small market-town on the Ouse in South Northants. 

2 Kegistrtitn Univ. Oxon. vol. ii. pt. i. p. 19. 

3 The inclusion in Euphnes of Plutarch s treatise on Education, and the nature of 

some of Lyly's changes or additions therein, support the idea that before 1578 he 

had seen some educational work. See Notes, p. 353; and cf. especially p. 267,1. 35 ; 

about money wasted on sport and grudged for a son's education ; p. 270, 1. 12, 'It is 

vertue maketh gentlemen ' (cf.the rebuke of Alcius, pp. 316-8, for pride of rank, while 

Guevara had lectured Epesipo rather for pride in his appearance;; p. 276,1. 30, his 

recommendation of exercise to relieve mental strain ; pp. 281-2, his strong sense 

of the opposition between the tutor's influence and that of flatterers—these things, 

not contained in Plutarch, or not pushed to nearly the same length, seem to me 

eloquent of personal experience.


Milton at Cambridge some sixty years later, venture to criticize the 

curriculum then in force, it was perhaps because he was uncertain 

what it embraced. His attack on Athens 1, for which, in spite of his 

disclaimer, we may read Oxford, concerns the morals and discipline 

rather than the studies of the place, and loses much of its force from 

one of Lyly's reputation as a madcap. It should, I think, be regarded 

as mainly an ebullition of personal spite, which chose to 

substitute the government of the University as a whole for the 

Magdalen dons against whom he had some real or fancied grievance. 

But it by no means follows that his Oxford career was wasted because 

he did not quite fit the bed of the University Procrustes. Gerard 

Langbaine, writing at Oxford in the same year as Wood, 1691, though 

not specially of his University career, tells us Lyly ' was a very close 

student, and much addicted to Poetry V Probably on his return to 

Oxford, before he took his B.A., which he did April 27, 1573, he 

buckled down to hard work. At any rate, the sources from which he 

borrowed in his plays, the plentiful use of Plutarch and Pliny in 

Euphues, and the classical allusions sown thickly over all his writings, 

are proof that, if he did not exhibit ardour precisely where the 

authorities expected it, he read much, and remembered it. 

Since he took his M.A. on June 1, 1575, in little more than two 

years after the B.A., he must have been dispensed by Congregation 

from one year's residence. In the previous year we have direct personal 

record of him in the shape of a Latin letter addressed to Lord 

Burleigh. In the opening words he describes himself as Burleigh's 

alumnus, and alludes to some specific favours shown him by the 

Lord Treasurer. The fact that the Kentish yeoman's son should be 

writing in 1574 to one of the chief personages in the realm, as well 

as the purport of the letter, reminds us of ' the great friends' of Fidus* 

father, and confirms us in the belief that Fidus' visit to Court at 

* the age of .xx. yeares 3 ' is autobiographical. Engaged, perhaps, in 

some tutorial capacity by Lord de la Warre or some other nobleman 

during the earlier years of his University course, his social qualities 

had procured him an introduction to the Treasurer, to whose bounty 

he had been indebted, and whose assistance he now ventures to 

invoke in a more important matter. The letter, written in a beautifully 

fine and clear round hand, probably by some professional 

1 Euphues and his Ephoebus, pp. 273-6. 

3 An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (under name). 

8 Passage quoted above, p. 3.

SEEKS A MAGDALEN FELLOWSHIP 13 

calligraphist, is endorsed ' 16 May, 1574, John Lilie, a scholar of 

Oxford, an Epistle For y e Queens letters to Magdalen College to 

admit him fellow'; and runs as follows 1 :— 

'Viro illustrissimo, et insignissimo Heroi Domino, Burgleo, totius 

Anglise Thesaurariæ, Regiae Maiestatis intimis a consilijs, et patrono 

suo colendissimo J. L. 

' Quod in me tuum alumnum benignitas tua munifica extiterit, (Clarissime 

Heros) et vitro ne expectanti quidem studium, operam, et singularem 

industriam declaraueris, agnosco pro eo ac decet supplex tuam humanitatem, 

et in literarum studiosos pietatem. Quare cum incredibilis 

mansuetudo tua, non solum merita, sed spem longe superarit, et quod 

meus pudor nunquam rogasset prolixius indulserit, habeo tuo honori 

gratias maximas, et vero tantas, quantas meæ facultatulæ referre nunquam 

poterunt. Et licet proiectae cuiusdam audaciae et praefrictae 

frontis videri possit, iuuenem rudem et temerarium, virum amplissimum 

et prudentem, eum cui nee ætatis accessio iudicij maturitatem, nee casta 

disciplina integritatem morum, nec artium doctrina sciential supellectilem 

est elargita, insignissimum Heroem, pro regni incolumitate, salute reip., 

communium fortunarum defensione, excubantem, rursum iniquis precibus 

interpellare, et importunius obstrepere. Tamen cum optimi cuiusque 

bonitas commune omnium sit perfugium, subinde percogitans esse animi 

excelsi cui multum subuenit ei velle plurimum opitulari, ad tuam amplitudinem 

quam perspectam indies, suspectam nunquam, probatam saspius 

habui, supplici prece accedo, passis manibus tuam operam, studium, 

humanitatem implorans. Haec summa est, in hoc cardo vertitur, haec 

1 The letter is here exactly reproduced from the Lansdotvne MS. xix. No. 16, in 

the British Museum, without correction of the one or two trifling errors, of punctuation 

or other, e.g. ' magistatis, ' obrepre,' ' opæra.' I append a translation of it. 

* J. L. to the most illustrious and distinguished Peer,Lord Burleigh, High Treasurer 

of England, of the Queen's Majesty's Privy Council, and his own revered patron. 

' In the gracious bounty shown, most noble Peer, to me your foster-son, and in 

your gratuitous and unlooked-for interest, effort, and extraordinary pains on my 

behalf, I recognize with all becoming humility your good and kindly disposition 

toward men devoted to learning. And since this inconceivable indulgence of 

yours has far surpassed, not merely my deserts, but my hopes, and has granted at 

large what my modesty would never have asked, I rest in deepest debt to your 

honour, in a degree indeed which must always be beyond my poor opportunities of 

repayment. And though it may seem almost the height of boldness and brazen 

effrontery for a rash and inexperienced youth, one who lacks the ripe judgement 

bestowed by advancing years, the sound character formed by chaste rule of life, 

the learned equipment furnished by the teaching of the arts, once more to assail 

and rudely importune with troublesome petitions a man of highest excellence 

and wisdom, a distinguished Peer, sleeplessly vigilant for the safety of the realm, 

the welfare of the State, the protection of all our fortunes; yet seeing that every 

great man's goodness is the common refuge—reflecting, moreover, that a lofty soul 

delights to overflow in bounty where it has once been generous—I approach with 

humble petition that excellence of yours which I have had every day in view, which 

I have never doubted, and of which I have experienced many a proof, imploring 

with outstretched hands your aid, interest, and kindness. This is the sum, the

14 


Helena, vt tua celsitudo dignetur serenissimae regiae magistatis literas 

(vt minus latine dicam) mandatorias extorquere, vt ad Magdalenenses 

deferantur quo in eorum societatem te duce possim obrepre. his fortunae 

nostras tanquam fundamento, tibi tanquam firmamento, connituntur: 

Nisi his subleuer, et sustenter, misere corruo, nihil enim potest quod me 

consoletur excogitari remedij, nec aliquid esset L. nisi tuus honor tanquam 

numen quoddam propitium, aut sacra anchora, aut salutare sydus, 

et Cynosura praeluxerit. Adeoque meum corpus tuo honori, et tenues 

fortunas tuae voluntati, et animum ad tua mandata conficienda habes 

expeditissimum. Quare in quern saepe celsitudo tua benefica, opaera 

parata, studium semper promptum fuerit, eundem hoc tempore supplicem 

et ad pedes tuos abiectum pro solita tua et incredibili humanitate subleuato. 

ego interim supplices manus ad deum Opt. & Max. tendam vt 

beneficentia Alexandrum, humanitate Traianum, etate Nestorem, inuicta 

mentis celsitudine Camillum, Salamong prudentia, Dauidem sanctimonia, 

Josiam religionis collapsae instaurandae, et incorruptae conseruandae 

cura, possis adaequare. Hoc interim promitto et spondeo meam nec in 

imbibendis artibus curam, nee in referenda gratia animum, nec in perferendo 

labore industriam, nec in propaganda tua laude studium, nec 

religionem in officio, nec fidem in obsequio, vnquam defuturam. Vale. 

' Tuas amplitudinis obseruantissimus 

'Joannes. Lilius.' 

That the aid Lyly thus invoked was not much out of the common 

course is clear from a letter to Burleigh from the Vice-Chancellor and 

Heads of Cambridge Colleges, dated March 22, 1579, and presented 

by Dr. Still himself, complaining of an abuse of the practice; to 

which Burleigh made courteous reply, acknowledging that unwarrant- 

cardinal point, the grand occasion—that your highness would deign to procure Her 

Most Gracious Majesty's mandatory letters (excuse the defect of latinity) to the 

authorities of Magdalen, that so under your auspices I may be quietly admitted as 

Fellow there. Such letters are as it were the strong foundation, you the lofty 

framewoik, to support my fortunes. Without this bulwark and buttress I 

collapse, I am ruined ; for I can devise no remedy which may give me comfort, 

nor would Lyly be aught unless your Honour serve for his protecting deity, his 

blessed anchor, his saving constellation and pole-star shining before him. And so 

your Honour may command my body's service, dispose of my poor fortunes, and 

hold me as willing agent of your bidding. Raise up then with your wonted 

inconceivable kindness one toward whom your highness has ever been bounteous, and 

ready with help and attention, and who now casts himself suppliant-wise at your feet: 

I the while will lift up hands of prayer to the Supreme that Alexander's well-doing, 

Trajan's humanity, Nestor's years, Camillus'unshaken loftiness of soul, Solomons 

wisdom, David's piety, Josiah's zeal in re-establishing the faith and in keeping it 

pure, may be rivalled by your own. This in the meantime I promise and vow that 

there shall never be wanting on my part diligence in the acquisition of learning, 

a grateful purpose, the effort to carry tasks through, zeal in spreading abroad your 

praises, conscientious performance of duty, nor faithful obedience. Farewell. 

' Your excellency's most obedient servant, 

' JOHN LYLY.'

STATUS IN THE COLLEGE 15 

able use had been made of the Queen's letters without her knowledge, 

but reserving her right to recommend 1 . But Lyly admits that he 

stands no chance without such aid ('nec aliquid esset L.'&c.). 

Dr. Humphrey, the precise and Puritanical President of Magdalen at 

this time, may well be supposed insensible to the merits of music and 

wit in an undergraduate—both might be, perhaps had been, employed 

to his inconvenience; and the grace of the method which sought 

intellectual distinction ' without snatching or strugling' would be 

equally likely to escape him. There is, on the whole, a heaven-born 

impudence about this scheme for turning the tables on the Magdalen 

Common Room that is worthy of the cheekiest page in Lyly's plays. 

The ' insignissimus Heros Dominus Burgleus' must have relished 

the application; and, while he seems to have declined to invoke the 

power of the Crown to pleasure a College scapegrace, remained 

Lyly's friend. 

Here may best be mentioned the single entry concerning Lyly 

which Dr. Bloxam found in the College records, that, namely, of 

a debt due by him for commons and batells: ' Mr. Ihon Lillie communarius 

debet pro communis et batellis 23s. 1od.' It is found, 

Mr. Wilson informs me, in a Bursar's Day-book (or record of charges 

for food and drink from the buttery or kitchen) of 1584, and forms 

part of the Billa Petitionis or list of debts due to the College in 

that year. Mr. Wilson adds, 'But the position of the entry shows 

that it was a debt of some standing. It is in that part of the list 

which includes debts due before 1579 ; from 1579 onwards the debts 

are classed under the years in which they had been added to the list. 

. . . Bound up in the same volume there is also the Billa Petitionis 

of 1586, and therein it appears that the debt was still due, as indeed 

were most of the other debts in that part of the list of 1584. ... In 

the earlier entry the word " communarius " is added above the line. 

It was perhaps to distinguish him from Edmund Lillie, Fellow from 

1564 to 1579: but, taken strictly, the word implies that, though not 

a Fellow, he had been admitted to share in the emoluments of the 

College, having the " commons " of a Fellow. The Demies were 

" semi-communarii," both being distinguished, in 1580, from the 

"Socii 2." Probably he was connected with the choir. I leave this 

point of his exact status in the College perforce undecided; and 

1 Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, ii. 368. 

3 Wood, in the passage quoted above, p. 7, conceives that he was at some time 

4 one of the Demies or Clerks.'


merely note, in regard to the debt, that while there is no certain 

evidence whether it was incurred before he took his M.A. in 1575, 

or during some later visit paid from Cambridge or London, the large 

amount of i1* points to a residence of some weeks. 

Disappointed in his hopes of an Oxford fellowship, and sobered, 

perhaps, by the dawning perception that a lively wit is not an infallible 

aid to a man's advancement, Lyly appears, after taking his M.A. 

June 1, 1575, to have repaired to the sister University, and there 

pursued his studies. I say ' appears'; for his actual residence at 

Cambridge is somewhat problematical. All we actually know is 

that he was incorporated M.A. of that University in 1579 2 . Nor, if 

we take some period of residence there as proved by Euphues' statement 

that he had been in both Universities 3 , and by some allusions 

in Pappe with a Hatchett4, need we suppose that he stayed there 

long. Gabriel Harvey, bent on discrediting him, has not a malicious 

hint to give us in connexion with his Cambridge life. Mutual incorporation 

between the two Universities, and indeed between them 

and foreign Universities, was common enough 5 . The step extended 

a scholar's reputation, and widened his chances of appointments ; 

and it was rendered easy by the recognition of Terms kept at one 

University as if kept at that in which he sought incorporation, though 

doubtless the necessary exercises would have to be performed. 

Lyly's incorporation at Cambridge, therefore, is not inconsistent 

with his residence elsewhere during the major part of the interval 

between 1575 and 1579. 

1 We must multiply by eight to arrive at its modern equivalent. 

8 Cooper's Athenae Cantabrigimses, ii. 326. 

8 Vol. ii. p. 192, 1. 37: 'I was my selfe in either of them, & like them both so 

well, that I meane not in the way of controuersie to preferre any for the better in 

Englande, but both for the best in the world, sauing this, that Colledges in Oxenford 

arc much more stately for the building, and Cambridge much more sumptuous for 

the houses in the towne,' &c. Cf. the whole passage. 

4 On an early page he alludes to some one, whom he suspects of being Martin 

Marprelate, thus: 'the one that I meane, thrust a knife into ones thigh at 

Cambridge, the quarrel was about cater-tray, and euer since hee hath quarrelled 

about eater-caps.' Gabriel Harvey took his M.A. at Cambridge in 1573. On 

the same page ' old Vidgin the cobler' may be a Cambridge reminiscence. 

5 Registrum Univ. Oxon. vol. ii. pt. i. pp. 350-62 gives lists of M.A.'s of 

Cambridge incorporated as M.A.'s of Oxford, among them • 11 July, 1581, Andros, 

Lancelot'; ' 11 July, 1585, Holland, Philemon'; ' 11 Apr. 1588, Robert, Earl of 

Essex'; 'June, 1588, Green, Robert' (no degree mentioned) ; ' 10 July, 1593, Meres, 

Francis': while at p. 349 we are told that ' 2 July, 1585, Harvey, Gabriel, Master 

of Trin. H. Camb., M.A. and LL.D. Camb., asked D.C.L. at Oxford,' and was 

licensed on July 13. John Penry, the leader and the victim of the Martinist 

controversy, who matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, Dec. 3, 1580, having 

graduated B.A. of Cambridge in 1583-4, subsequently became a commoner of St. 

Alban's Hall, Oxford, and proceeded M.A. there on July 11,1586. {Dict. Nat, Biog,)

RESIDENCE IN THE SAVOY 17 

Evidence that he was in fact residing elsewhere during some portion 

at least of this period is extant in Gabriel Harvey's statement 

that when Euphues was being written, i.e. in 1578 and perhaps 

earlier, he knew Lyly ' in the Savoy 1.' The Lancastrian palace of the 

Savoy, blown up and burnt in Wat Tyler's rebellion, had been restored 

by Henry VII as 'a charitable foundation, to harbour an Hundred 

poor People, Sick or Lame, or Travellers'; and from the details 

given by Stow 2 of its management during the reigns of Edward, 

Mary, and Elizabeth, it is clear that the lax wording of the foundation 

stautes and a recommendation from an influential friend would 

procure easy admission, for some temporary period at least, of 

a needy man of letters or university-student to the benefits of the 

Hospice. Moreover from details given in Mr. W. J. Loftie's 

Memorials of the Savoy, it appears that various chambers and tenements 

in the Savoy precinct were customarily let to tenants, and that 

in 1573 Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, is over ten pounds in 

arrear of rent to the Savoy for two such tenements 3. Oxford, of 

course, was Burleigh's son-in-law, having married in December 1571 

Anne, his eldest daughter by his first wife Mary, sister of Sir John 

Cheeke. Burleigh's own house in the Strand was close to the 

Savoy 4 and his influence as Secretary of State on the Government of 

the Hospital seems to have been more important than that of any 

one else. It is to him that appeal is made in 1570 against the mismanagement 

and embezzlement of the funds by Thomas Thurland, 

the Master. A commission presided over by Edmund Grindall, 

Archbishop of York, deprived Thurland of his office on July 29 of 

1 ' Pap-hatchet (for the name of thy good nature is pitifully grown out of request) 

thy old acquaintance in the Savoy, when young Euphues hatcht the eggs that his elder 

friends laid (Surely Euphues was some way a pretty fellow : would God Lilly had 

alwaies been Euphues and never Papp-hatchet), that old acquaintance now somewhat 

strangely saluted with a new remembrance, is neither lullabied with thy sweet 

Papp, nor scare-crow'd with thy sour Hatchett.' Pierce's Supererogation, Bk. ii. 

written in 1589 (Archaica, ii. 82, or Grosarfs ed. of Harvey's Works, vol. ii. p. 124). 

To this must be added the later passage (Archaica, ii. p. 84; Grosart, ii. 128) 

' They were much deceived in him at Oxford and in the Savoy, when Master 

Absalon lived, that took him only for a dapper and deft companion, or a pert 

conceited youth,' &c. 

2 Survey, i. 210, ed. Strype. 

8 Memorials of the Savoy (1878), p. 125, which gives from a document of 15 

Elizabeth in the Office of the Receiver-General arrears of rent due for chambers in 

the Hospital from divers persons—Sir Ralph Sadler, Thomas Haines, Esq., 

Dorothea Brodbelt, lady of the Privy Chamber, Sir Henry Lee, Ralph Bowes, gent. 

—and among them ' From Edward Earl of Oxford, part rent of two tenements 

within the Hospital, late in the tenure of John Hurleston, £4, and Barnard 

Hampton, 63s. 4d., £10 : 11 : 8.' 

4 Ibid. p. 127. 

BOND x C


that year; but no one was appointed in his stead ; and on April 26, 

1574 Burleigh, on his oath to certain articles of reformation, reinstated 

him 1. The date of his final disappearance is not absolutely 

determined; but Mr. Loftie fixes 1575 or 1577 as the probable date 

of Dr. Mount's succession to the office of Master, which he held till 

1602 2 . Dr. Mount, then, cannot be the ' Master Absalon' whom 

Harvey, writing in 1589, represents as dead. Possibly it is a nickname 

expressing Thurland's extravagant and unprincipled character. 

The upshot, at any rate, is that in 1577 or earlier Lyly was living, 

whether temporarily or permanently, in the Savoy, probably owing his 

residence there to Burleigh's interest; and that in this famous old spot 

he made the acquaintance of Gabriel Harvey, who was living there 

on much the same conditions. A reference to gambling in Pappe 3 

gives us a momentary glimpse into one side of the life there; and 

when, two pages farther on, Lyly alludes, as a possible champion to 

be engaged against Martin, to ' one that shall so translate you out of 

French into English, that you will blush and lie by it,' proceeding 

immediately to threaten Martin with another antagonist in Harvey, 

one is strongly tempted to think of Edmund Spenser as a possible 

associate of the two men in the same place. Spenser, who left Cambridge 

for the north after taking his M. A. in 1576, came to London 

in 1573, probably at his friend Harvey's suggestion. To Harvey he 

seems to have owed his introduction to Sidney, and through him to 

Sidney's uncle Leicester, from whose house he dates a letter on 

Oct. 15, 1579. It is likely enough that Lyly, Harvey's friend, 

was known sooner or later to Sidney, Leicester, Spenser—to all 

whom Harvey knew; nor after 1579 would he stand in need of 

Harvey's introduction to anybody. In support of my identification 

1 Memorials of the Savoy (1878), p. 125 : but since a letter survives from the 

Archbishop to Burleigh of that same date (Apr. 26) [Lansdowne MS. xix. No 4] 

protesting against the reappointment, his restoration would seem to have been 

a little later. 

2 'His (Thurland's) successor was Dr. [Wm.] Mount, and the date of his 

appointment may have been in 1575 or 1577. There are State papers, dated in 

both those years, relating to the condition and revenues of the Hospital, which 

may have been drawn up on the vacancy. It was during Dr. Mount's incumbency 

that the abortive rising of the Earl of Essex took place, and tioops were 

stationed in the Savoy, apparently to protect Lord Burleigh [or rather his son 

and successor, Sir Robert Cecil. Burleigh died in 1598], whose house, as we have 

seen, was opposite. Dr. Mount died apparently in 1602, and was succeeded by 

Dr. Neale' (Ibid. p. 127). 

3 Vol. iii: ' Why, is not gaming lawful ? I know where there is more play in 

the compasse of an Hospital!, than in the circuite of Westchester' (i. e. Chester: 

see note ad loc).

EUPHUES, PART L FINISHED SUMMER 1578 19 

of this translator ' out of French into English,' I will merely mention 

that Spenser had done some such translation, from du Beilay, as 

early as 1569, that in 1589, when Pappe was written, he was still 

known chiefly as the poet of The Shepheardes Kalender, with its 

renderings from Marot, and that, as we shall see later on, some 

stanzas of his spoken by Thalia in The Teares of the Muses (publ. in 

Complaints, 1591) probably allude to Lyly himself. 

Euphues: the Anatomy of Wyt, Lyly's first literary work ', appeared 

without date at the close of 1578 ' hatched in the hard winter with 

the AlcyonV It was entered on the Stationers' Register by the 

publisher, Gabriel Cawood, on December 2 of that year 3 ; and is 

spoken of by Lyly as 'lying bound on the Stacioners stall at 

Christmas,' in a passage in which alterations made to suit subsequent 

editions show that he is referring to his own work 4 . That 

he had finished it in the summer of that year (1578) is to be inferred 

from the hope expressed at the end of it to have Euphues returned 

from his English visit 'within one Summer' (p. 323, 1. 20), compared 

with the entry of Euphues and his England, which describes that 

visit, in the Stationers' Register, on July 24, 1579 fi , and with Lyly's 

own remark in the dedication thereof (vol. ii. p. 4,l.12), ' Of the second 

I went a whole yeare big, and yet when euerye one thought me ready 

to lye downe, I did then quicken'—the natural interpretation of 

which is that in the summer of 1579, a year from the conclusion of 

Part I had already elapsed, but Part II, not actually published till the 

spring of 1580 6 , had then been hardly begun. The interval of half 

a year between the conclusion and the appearance of Part I would 

be occupied by the finding of a publisher and the printing of the 

work. It is dedicated to 'my very good Lord and Master Sir 

William West Knight, Lord Delaware 7 '; it professes to be '; set 

1 

' Which discourse (right Honorable) I hope you Wil the rather pardon for the 

rudenes in that it is the first,'—Dedication to Sir William West, p. 180. * In the like 

manner fareth it with me (Right Honourable) who neuer before handling the 

pensill, did for my fyrst counterfaite, coulour mine owne Euphues'— Dedication of 

Part II to the Earl of Oxford, vol. ii. p. 3,1. 12. There is absolutely no ground for 

supposing, with Mr. G. F. Baker, that Endimion preceded Euphues. 

1 

Vol. ii. p. 5,1. 23. 3 Arber's Transcript, ii. 342. 

* Address 'to the Gentlemen Readers,' p. 182: on which passage see my 

remarks, ' Bibliography,' pp. 90-1. 

5 Transcript, ii. 357. 

6 In the address 'To the Gentlemen Readers,' prefixed to Euphues and his 

England, vol. ii. p. 11, 1. 11, he tries to excuse the delay—' Secondly, being a great 

start from Athens to England, he thought to stay for the advantage of a Leape 

yeare, and had not -this yeare leapt with him, I think he had not yet leapt hether.' 

7 The family seat of the Wests, lords de la Warre, was at Broadwater in Sussex 

(about a mile to the north of the present town of Worthing), in the parish church 

C 2


foorth' not ' for any deuotion in print, but for dutie which I owe to 

my Patrone 1,' and is spoken of later as having been ' sent to a noble 

man to nurse, who with great loue brought him vp for a yeareV 

This is all there is to be gleaned from Lyly himself; and though it 

is possible, as suggested above, that he had held some tutorial post 

in Lord de la Warre's household during his Oxford course, we have 

no certain evidence of any closer connexion than a permission to 

dedicate, a permission generally understood to carry some substantial 

recognition of the compliment on the patron's part. 

The new novel was an immediate and striking success. Less, 

perhaps, for the novelty of the style—which carried to its highest 

point the antithetic balance of structure discernible in North's 

Diall of Princes', 1557, and much more strongly, and with large 

addition of alliterative devices, in Pettie's recent Pallace of Pleasure, 

1576— than for its originality of plan and purport, this first considerable 

English romance of contemporary life was hailed by the 

cultivated classes of society as a welcome change from the interminable 

adventures of wandering knights or classical heroes, and 

from a portraiture of the fair sex more chivalrous and conventional 

than lively or accurate. A spice of satirical flavour was added in 

the severe attack on university discipline, delivered in the chapter 

entitled Euphues and his Ephoebus, in which, under the anachronism 

of ' Athens,' the public had no difficulty in recognizing the author's 

own university of Oxford. Novelty, wit, and scandal alike promoted 

a sale; a second edition was called for by Midsummer of 1579, 

a third by Christmas of that year, and a fourth at Easter of 1580. 

To the second Lyly, besides revising the text throughout, made 

considerable additions, and appended an address, ' To my verie good 

of which village they were successively buried. I cannot find that they had any 

property in Kent, though in my Quarterly article of Jan. 1896, I suggested 

(wrongly) that Broadwater might link Lyly with Tunbridge Wells, where there 

is a Bioadwater Down. William West, born about 1519, and bred up as heir to 

his childless uncle Thomas, Lord de la Wane, was disabled from all honours by 

Act of Parliament in 1547-8, for attempting to poison that uncle, who did not 

die till 1554, when the title became extinct. William served, however, at the 

siege of St. Quentin in 1557: on April 10, 1563, he was restored in blood, was 

knighted in 1568, and on Feb. 5, 1569-70, is believed to have been cieated by 

patent Baron de la Warre. He was summoned to Parliament by writs, from 

May 8, 1572 to Feb. 19, 1591-2, and sat on the trials of the Duke of Norfolk 

(1571-2) and the Earl of Arundel (1589). He married Elizabeth, daughter of 

Thomas Strange of Chesterton, and died Dec. 30, 1595. (Dugdale's Baronage; 

pp. 139-144, Collins* Peerage of England, iii. 391 sqq., and Diet. Nat. Biog. 

vol. lx. p. 344.) 

1 Address to the Gentlemen Readers, p. 182. 

• Dedication to Part II, vol. ii. p. 4, 1. 28.

DELAY IN COMPOSING PART II 21 

friends the Gentlemen Scholers of Oxford'; in which, without 

positively retracting, he endeavoured to allay the irritation caused by 

his remarks on university life, and suggested that in a forthcoming 

sequel should rather be sought his real views on Oxford. Such 

a sequel had been promised at the close of the original edition, 

without any very definite intention of fulfilment 1 . But the rapid 

success of his venture must have soon determined him to continue 

working the rich vein he had opened; and by the time the second 

edition of The Anatomy of Wyt was issued, its hero was well under 

weigh for this country. Had he not been so we should hardly find 

the Second Part entered on the Stationers' Register by Gabriel 

Cawood on July 24, 1579 2 . But Lyly's clear statement in the 

Dedication, vol. ii. p. 4,1. 12, ' Of the second I went a whole yeare big, 

and yet when euerye one thought me ready to lye downe, I did 

then quicken,' &c, relieves us from all necessity of supposing it then 

ready for the press; or of assenting to the reasons invented to 

account for the delay to publish (1) by Mr. Fleay 8 , who supposes 

that Lyly withheld his book, with its flattery of Elizabeth, and 

compliments to Burleigh, because he was disappointed by Tylney's 

appointment as Master of the Revels on the same day that Cawood 

entered the book (July 24, 1579); (2) by Mr. G. F. Baker 4 , who, 

postulating an early connexion between Lyly and Leicester—we 

mustn't forget that Leicester was Chancellor of Oxford University 

when Lyly was an undergraduate !—asks us to believe that Leicester's 

disgrace in August, 1579 induced our author to reserve his work, 

and that his partial restoration to favour in September-October 

occasioned the composition and performance (all in about three 

weeks !) of the play of Endimion. The notion of any candidature 

by Lyly for the Revels Mastership so early as 1579, a notion 

1 Compare 'I haue finished the first part of Euphues whome now I left readye 

to crosse the Seas to Englande, if the wind sende him a shorte cutte you shall in the 

seconde part heare what newes he bringeth and I hope to haue him retourned within 

one Summer.' Anatomy of Wyt, p. 323,1.15—with Epist. Ded. to Part II (vol. ii. 

p. 4,1. 20) ' So I suspecting that Euphues would be carped of some curious Reader, 

thought by some false shewe to bringe them in hope of that which then I meant not, 

leading them with a longing of a second part, that they might speake well of the 

first,' &c; and with the words of the Address (2nd ed. of Part I), 'Euphues . . . 

is now on the seas, & how he hath ben tossed I know not, but whereas I had 

thought to receiue him at Douer, I must meete him at Hampton,' p. 325, 1. 17, 

i. e. Southampton. The stormy weather is alleged in excuse of his non-arrival 

by the promised date, summer. 2 Transcript, ii, 357. 

8 Biographical Chronicle of the English Stage, vol. ii. p. 37. 

4 Biographical Introduction to Endymion the Man in the Moon . . ., edited by 

George F. Baker, New York, 1894, pp. xxxiii-vi, lxix-xci.


intrinsically improbable, is completely negatived by the final settlement 

of the vexed question of the dates of his two petitions to the 

Queen, which enables me to date his first vague appointment 

definitely in 1585 1, and the idea that Euphues and his England was 

finished, or nearly finished, by the summer of 1579, is contradicted 

not only by the affair mentioned in the Glasse (vol. ii. p. 207, 1. 32) 

of a gun discharged at the Queen's barge, an incident which Camden, 

who reports it, clearly intends to represent as occurring at the end 

of July 2 , but still more emphatically by the allusion on an earlier 

page to Gosson's Ephemerides of Phialo, a book not entered on the 

Stationers' Register until November 7, 1579 '. The idea of any 

connexion between Leicester and Lyly at this date, an idea which has 

really nothing to support it, and Prof. A. W. Ward's easy acceptance 

of which is not a little surprising 4 , is sufficiently negatived by the 

absence in the Glasse of any eulogy of that statesman, such as 

Burleigh receives (vol. ii. p. 198), and by the general opposition 

between Leicester and Burleigh, to whose party in the Court Lyly 

was certainly at this time attached 5 . 

1 See below, pp. 32 sqq. 

2 Immediately after narrating the incident (Annals of Elizabeth, 1579, Hist, of 

England in 3 vols, fol., ii. p. 471) he proceeds—'Some few days after, the Duke 

of Anjou himself arrived privately in England '— a visit known to have occurred 

early in August. (Fronde's Hist, of England, xi. 153-4.) 

3 Euphues and his England, vol. ii. p. 99, 1. 17 note, and Transcript, ii. 361. It 

is just possible that Lyly was the author of Straunge Newes out of Affrick, 

a pamphlet in reply to Gosson's Schoole of Abuse, to which the latter devotes 

some two and a half folios at the opening of the Ephemerides of Phialo. The 

pamphlet is lost, but no writer would correspond so well as Lyly to Gosson's 

description of its contents, a description quoted in full in Arber's edition of The 

Schoole of Abuse, pp. 62-3. Yet, though Lyly might be willing enough to defend 

the stage, the character of his reference to Gosson in this passage of Euphues, 

vol. ii. p. 99, is not unfriendly, which it could hardly have avoided being after 

Gosson's remarks on Straunge Newes, had he been its author; nor in Playes 

Confuted (1582 ?) does Gosson allude at all to Lyly, or to Campaspe or Sapho and 

Phao, both of which had, I believe, been performed on the popular stage. 

4 English Dramatic Literature (ed. 1900), vol.i. 289-292, and compare Baker's 

absurdly weak arguments, Endymion, p. xxxv. 

5 The occasion of all this baseless fabric of ingenious conjecture is not merely 

the interval between the entry and the publication of the Second Part, but the 

discrepancy, first noted by Professor Arber in 1868, between the date of Philautus' 

last letter to Euphues (vol. ii. p. 223), ' the first of Februarie. 1579,' i.e. 1579-80, 

and the date given at the outset of the book (vol. ii. p. 13) for the commencement of 

Euphues' voyage to England, ' the first of December, 1579' J which latter would 

demand, since a year or more of time is required by the action of the novel, a date 

as late as 1580-1 for Philautus' letter. Mr. Fleay considers that the dates were 

originally earlier to suit the intended earlier date of issue, and in this he is 

probably right—originally, no doubt, Euphues sailed on Dec. 1, 1578: and he 

is right, too, in supposing the discrepancy to have been caused by the necessity 

of dating Philautus last letter before the date of actual publication, spring, 1580. 

But the motive of altering the first date, which Mr. Fleay thinks done ' to conceal

CAMPASPE BEGUN 1579? 

The simple reason for the delay in publishing was that the book 

was not finished; and if we consider the length of the work—it is 

more than half as long again as Part I—the elaboration of the style 

which must absolutely have precluded rapid composition, and Lyly's 

own statement1 that, when his friends were expecting its appearance 

it was in reality hardly begun, the delay need cause us no surprise. 

Moreover, from the number of allusions in the prefatory matter to 

the Greek painters, and especially Apelles 2 , and in particular from the 

excuse alleged (vol. ii. p. 11,1. 6) for the delay in Euphues' arrival, that 

' he loytered, tarying many a month in Italy viewing the Ladyes in 

a Painters shop,' I am inclined to believe that the first half of 1579 

was occupied, not so much with Euphues and his England, as with 

his first dramatic venture Campaspe ; a belief that is confirmed when 

I read in Euphues and his England (vol. ii. p. 59,l. 21) that ' Appelles 

(Joued) the counterfeit of Campaspe,' a circumstance that cannot be 

said to form part of Pliny's brief account 3 , but only of Lyly's play 4 . 

But the verbal transcription in the latter of passages from North's 

Plutarch, the dedication of which is only dated January 16, 1579-80, 

forbid us to suppose the play finished before 1580, or else compel 

us to regard it as receiving additions in that or the next year 5. 

his disappointment' about the Revels, was simply, I believe, to make it square 

with the successive alterations, 'Christmas,' ' Midsomer,' 'Christmas,' made at 

p. 182 in the first three editions of Part I. Lyly forgot—or, unable to foiesee 

a laborious and ciitical nineteenth century, expected his readers to overlook—that 

the other notes of time m the novel do not allow of such a compression. 

1 Vol. ii. p. 4, 11. 12-4. 

2 Ibid. pp. 5, 6 (twice), 9, &c. 

3 De Historia Naturali, lib. xxxv. cap. x. 

4 Campaspe, iii. 5, iv. 4, v. 4. Lyly's references to painting are, indeed, of such 

a number and character as to suggest that he had some closer acquaintance with 

ttie art than could be gleaned merely from a perusal of Pliny's De Pictura. In the 

Glasse, vol. ii. p. 194,1.16, he refers, perhaps following Holinshed, to the pointing 

of the Englishman, naked, with a pair of shears and a piece of cloth, which was 

one of a series of national figures painted by the Fleming, Lucas de Heere (1534?- 

1584), in the gallery of the Earl of Lincoln (English Painters, by H. J. Wilmot- 

Buxton, p. 20). De Heere was Court painter to both Mary and Elizabeth ; and his 

portrait of the latter, attended by Juno, Minerva and Venus, dated 1569, which is 

preserved at Hampton Court (No. 635), may have suggested the lines Iouis Elizabeth 

with which Lyly concludes his encomium (p. 216). It is likely enough that in 1579 

he made De Heere's, or some other painter's, acquaintance, and haunted his studio. 

I can trace no painting, miniature, or sketch, which may claim to be the counterfeit 

presentment of our author; Mr. Lionel Cust, Director of the National Portrait 

Gallery, knows of none such; nor is there any that can be identified with him in 

the Hope Collection at Oxford: but in the case of one so well known the probability 

seems great that his featuies were preserved in one form or another, either 

by De Heere, or by our earliest native painter of note, Nicholas Milliard (1547— 

1619), and that such portrait still exists in some private collection, though its 

identity may be lost beyond recall. 

5 See Campaspe, Sources and Date. 

23


Euphues and his England appeared, at any rate, with the date 

1580 upon its title-page, evidence that it was not published before 

March 25 of that year. It proved no less of a success than its 

predecessor; a close examination of the surviving early copies 

showing that two other editions were printed in the same year, and 

one in each of the two following years 1 It was dedicated ' To the 

Right Honourable my very good Lorde and Maister Edward de Vere, 

Earle of Oxenforde'; and here we have the first authentic indication 

of Lyly's connexion with Burleigh's son-in-law, a connexion which 

may have begun in the Savoy where, as we saw, Oxford rented 

'two tenements,' but which Lyly must in any case have owed to 

Burleigh's recommendation. The nature of the connexion is to be 

inferred from Lyly's own letter of 1582, and from Harvey's Advertisement 

to Pap Hatchet 2 . He was engaged as private secretary to 

the Earl, and admitted to his confidence. The two men were much 

of an age—Oxford was born in 1550—and had common elements 

of character and directions of taste. From the Earl, probably, it 

was that Lyly first received the dramatic impulse. None of Oxford's 

comedies survive, but Puttenham, writing in 1589, classes him 

with Richard Edwardes as 'deseruing the hyest price ... for 

Comedy and Enterlude 3 '; and we hear further of a company of 

players under his patronage playing at Ipswich, at Cambridge in 

1581, and other places', while the Revels Accounts of 1584 record 

the performance before the Queen of ' The history of Agamemnon 

't Ulisses ... by the Earle of Oxenford his boyes on St. John's daie 

at night at Grenewiche 5.' Suggestion, encouragement, and apparatus 

thus lay ready to Lyly's hand; and it was natural that he should 

turn to comedy, though it is to the St. Paul's and the Chapel 

children that his first pieces are entrusted. If Campaspe was composed 

in 1579 it may have been performed at the Blackfriars 6 that 

1 See under Text and Bibliography, pp. 95-7; and for remaining editions, of 

which the seventeenth of either Part was issued in 1636, see Table, pp. 101-5. 

a Brydges' Archaica, vol. ii. p. 139, where Harvey says that some expressions 

he reproduces from Pappe, 'and a whole sink of such arrant phrases, savour hotly 

of the same Lucianical breath, and discover the minion secretary aloof.' (Grosart's 

ed. ii. 215.) 

3 The Arte of English Poesie, ed. Arber, p. 77. 

' Diet, of National Biog, art.' Vere, Edward de, 17th Earl of Oxford.' 

5 Cunningham's Extracts, p. 188. 

0 Though it has been sufficiently demonstrated that the Blackfriars Theatre was 

not at this time in existence, being built in fact by Burbage in 1596-7, yet it is 

clear from Lyly's Prologues 'At the Blackfriars,' that his first two plays were 

performed at that place. In the deed of feoffment to Burbage, dated Feb. 4, 1596,

LETTER TO WATSON 25 

Christmas, or at least at Christmas, 1580, though I believe the 

' newyeares day at night' of its first performance at Court to have 

been that of 1581-2, and the passages in Act i, borrowed from or 

founded on North's Plutarch, cannot have been written before 

1580 1. In the summer of 1581, when the futility of Alen'on's suit 

of Elizabeth was evident to the Court, Lyly was probably writing 

Sapho and Phao; and though her subsequent vacillation may have 

caused him to lay it aside, I believe it was finished almost immediately 

on Alengon's final departure on February 2, 1582, and produced 

at Court by the Paul's and Chapel children conjointly on 

'Shroue tewsday,' February 27. 

In the spring of this same year, 1582, we have other information 

of him in the shape of a letter prefixed to Thomas Watson's 'Eka- 

TOfxiraOia or Passionate Centurie of Loue, a collection of a hundred 

love-sonnets, dedicated to Lyly's patron the Earl of Oxford, and 

entered by Lyly's publisher on the Stationers' Register under date 

March 31 2 . Lyly may have known Watson at Oxford: that their 

tastes and dispositions were very similar is proved by Anthony a 

Wood's very similar statements about them 3 ; and the tone of Lyly's 

and quoted in Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines, i. 299, the property conveyed to 

him consists chiefly of ' seaven greate upper romes as they are nowe devided, 

being all uppon one flower and sometyme beinge one greate and entire rome.' 

Remembering the old connexion of the Revels Office with the Blackfriars in 

Sir Thos. Cawarden's time, remembering, too, that in 1596 the Lord Chamberlain's 

house is described as being ' neere adjoyning' the property bought by Burbage, 

and that until Tylney's appointment in 1579 plays used to be ' recited' before 

the Lord Chamberlain himself to obtain his licence, there seems sufficient probability 

that some large room in the Blackfriars, and possibly the very one bought 

by Burbage as seven rooms, had in 1580-3 and earlier (but long after official 

excuse had disappeared with the transference of the Revels Office to St. John's 

Priory, near Smithfield), been used for dramatic purposes by connivance of the 

Lord Chamberlain or some private personage. The privilege would be doubly 

welcome to the players, since the liberties of the Blackfriars were exempt from 

the jurisdiction of the Common Council; while the fact of the room being on 

private premises would warrant the petitioneis against Burbage's theatre in 1596, 

in stating that ' there hath not at any tyme heretofore been used any comon 

playhouse within the same precinct.' (Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, i. 304.) 

1 North's dedication to Elizabeth is dated Jan. 16, 1579-80. 

2 Arber's Transcript, ii. 409: 'vltimo Die marcij 1582 master Cawoode 

Licenced to him vnder the andes of master Recorder and master Dewce Watsons 

passions manifestinge the true frenzy of love . .. vj d .' 

3 ' Thomas Watson, a Londoner born, did spend some time in this university, 

not in logic and philosophy, as he ought to have done; but in the smooth and 

pleasant studies of poetry and romance, whereby he obtained an honourable name 

among the students in those faculties. Afterward retiring to the metropolis, 

studied at common law at riper years. . . . He hath Written other things of that 

nature or stiain [i. e. that of Watson's Meliboeus and Amintae Gaudia, previously 

referred to], and something pertaining to pastoral, which I have not yet seen, and 

was highly valued among ingenious men, in the latter end of Q. Elizabeth.' 

(Athenae Oxonunses, i.601 (ed. Bliss, 1813).)


letter is that of close intimacy. Most interesting is the allusion to 

some former unfortunate flame of his own; of which we have, I believe, 

a reflection in the unrequited passion of Fidus for Iffida, in Euphues 

and his England, but which Lyly here frankly acknowledges has 

ceased to pain him. His tone is quiet and slightly cynical, without 

any of the bitterness felt by Euphues or Philautus on their rejection, 

respectively, by'Lucilla or Camilla. And he promises to repay his 

friend's confidence by imparting to him in private the verses which 

his own passion had called forth, but which he has no intention of 

printing. Whatever these were—and if we may judge by Cupid and 

my Campaspe, they may well have been daintier than anything of 

Watson's—they are now irrecoverable. At least it seems clear from 

the letter that Lyly is not yet married. I reproduce it from the editio 

princeps of Watson's book, where it immediately follows the address 

' To the friendly reader,' preceding all commendatory verse by other 

writers, among whom is ' G. Peele '. 

'JOHN LYLY TO THE AUTHOUR HIS FRIEND. 

' My good friend, I haue read your new passions, and they haue renewed 

mine old pleasures, the which brought to me no lesse delight, the" they 

haue done to your selfe commendations. And certes had not one of 

mine eies about serious affaires beene watchfull, both by being too too 

busie had beene wanton : such is the nature of persuading pleasure, that 

it melteth the marrowe before it scorch the skin, and burneth before it 

warmeth: Not vnlike vnto the oyle of leat, which rotteth the bone and 

neuer ranckleth the flesh, or the Scarab flies, which enter into the roote 

and neuer touch the rinde. 

' And whereas you desire to haue my opinion, you may imagine that my 

stomake is rather cloyed, then quesie, & therfore mine appetite of lesse 

force the mine affection, fearing rather a surfet of sweetenes, then desiring 

a satisfying. The repeating of Loue, wrought in me a remembrance of 

liking, but serching the very vaines of my hearte, I could finde nothing 

but a broad scarre, where I left a deepe wounde : and loose stringes, 

where I tyed hard knots: and a table of Steele, where I framed a plot 

of wax. • 

' Whereby I noted that young swannes are grey, & the olde white, youg 

trees tender, & the old tough, young me amorous, & growing in yeeres, 

either wiser or warier. The Corall in the water is a softe weede, on the 

land a hard stone: a sworde frieth in the fire like a blacke ele, but layd 

in earth like white snowe : the heart in loue is altogether passionate, but 

free from desire, altogether carelesse. 

' But it is not my intent to inueigh against loue, which wome* account 

but a bare word, & that me reuerence as the best God: onely this I would

ATTITUDE TOWARDS LOVE 27 

add without offence to Gentlewomen, that were not men more supersticious 

in their praises, the" wome are constant in their passions: Loue 

would either shortly be worne out of vse, or men out of loue, or women 

out of lightnes. I ca codemne none but by coiecture, nor commend any 

but by lying, yet suspicion is as free as thought, and as farre as I see as 

necessary, as credulitie. 

' Touching your Mistres I must needes thinke well, seeing you haue 

written so well, but as false glasses shewe the fairest faces, so fine gloses 

ame"d the baddest fancies. Apelles painted the Phenix by hearesay not 

by sight, and Lysippus engraued Vulcan with a streight legge, whome 

nature framed with a poult 1 foote, which proueth men to be of greater 

affection then judgement. But in that so aptly you haue varied vppon 

women, I will not vary from you, so confesse I must, and if I should not, 

yet mought I be compelled, that to Loue were the sweetest thing in the 

earth: If women were the faithfullest, & that women would be more 

constant if men were more wise. 

' And seeing you haue vsed mee so friendly, as to make me acquainted 

with your passions, I will shortly make you pryuie to mine, which I woulde 

be loth the printer shoulde see, for that my fancies being neuer so crooked 

he would put the in streight lines, vnfit for my humor, necessarie for his 

art, who setteth downe, blinde, in as many letters as seeing. 

'Farewell.' 

In the ' serious affaires,' about which he professes himself ' watchfull,' 

we may perhaps recognize the oncoming of the difference 

between him and his patron which is the subject of his letter to 

Burleigh in the following July. The most natural interpretation of 

that letter is that some person had charged Lyly with a falsification 

of accounts or appropriation of moneys ; but the accusation may 

equally well have referred to some want of openness in dealing, some 

breach of the Earl's confidence, or possibly some unfavourable 

criticism passed on him behind his back. Lyly seems a little 

uncertain with what precisely he is charged; and the whole affair 

may be nothing more than an ebullition of gloomy and suspicious 

temper on the part of Oxford, who was at this very time confined 

by the Queen's order to his own house, on account of a quarrel 

between himself and a gentleman of the privy chamber, Thomas 

Knyvet, which had already led to the wounding of both the principals 

and the death of a retainer on either side 2 . Whatever the cause, it 

does not appear that Lyly had at the time of writing been actually 

1 

poult foote, club-foot, literally chicken-foot. Again of Vulcan, Euphues, 

PP- 179, 239- 

2 Diet. Mat. Biog., art. ' Vere, Edward de.'


dismissed, nor can we be sure that he ever was so. The letter, as 

has been remarked, has the ring of honesty; and from Harvey's 

expression ' the minion secretary' in 1589 1 we might even infer that 

he still held his post, though I think it more probable that he 

resigned it on his assumption of duties in the Revels Office in or 

about 1585. 

The letter is written in a natural and legible hand, very different 

to the fine copperplate of the Latin epistle of 1574, and is probably 

Lyly's autograph. It is endorsed, presumably by Burleigh's secretary, 

' Julij 1582, John Lilly to my L.', and superscribed 

' To y e right honorable, y e L. Burleigh, L. high Tresorer of England. 

' My duetie (right honorable) in most humble manner remembred. 

' It hath plesed my Lord vpon what colour I cannot tell, certaine I am 

vpon no cause, to be displesed wt me, y e grief wherof is more then the 

losse can be. But seeing I am to Hue in y e world, I must also be iudged 

by the world, for that an honest seruaunt must be such as Caesar wold 

haue his wif, not only free from synne, but from suspicion. And for that 

I wish nothing more then to commit all my waies to yo r wisdome, and 

the deuises of others to yo r iudgment, I heere yeld both my self and my 

soule, the one to be tried by yo r honnor, the other by the iustic of god. 

and I doubt not but my dealings being sifted, the world shall find whit 

meale, wher others thought to shew cours branne. It may be manie 

things wil be obiected, but yt any thing can be proued I doubt, I know 

yo r L. will soone smell deuises from simplicity, trueth from trecherie, 

factions from iust servic. And god is my witnes, before whome I speak, 

and before whome for my speach I shall aunswer, y t all my thoughtes 

concerning my L. haue byne ever reuerent, and almost relligious. How 

I haue dealt god knoweth and my Lady can coniecture, so faithfullie, 

as I am as vnspotted for dishonestie, as a suckling from theft. This 

conscinc of myne maketh me presume to stand to all trialls, ether of 

accomptes, or counsell, in the one I neuer vsed falshood, nor in the 

other dissembling, my most humble suit therefore vnto yor L. is yt my 

accusations be not smothered and I choaked in y e smoak, but that they 

maie be tried in y e fire, and I will stand to the heat. And my only 

comfort is, yt he yt is 2 wis shall iudg trueth, whos nakednes shall manifest 

her noblenes. But I will not troble yo r honorable eares w ts so meinie 

idle wordes only this vpon my knees I ask, yt yo r L. will vousalf to talk 

wt me, and in all things will I shew my self so honest, y t my disgrac shall 

bring to yo r L. as great rneruell, as it hath done to me grief, and so 

1 Brydges' Arckaica, ii. 139; Grosart's ed. of Harvey's Works, ii. 215. 

2 'is' is repeated in the MS. 

8 ' wt' is preceded in the MS. by ' but' erased, and followed by ' so ' which 

Fairholt (vol. i. p. xv) omits.

IN DISGRACE WITH LORD OXFORD 29 

thoroughly will I satisfie everie obicction, yt yo r L. shall think me faithfull, 

though infortunat. That yo r honnor rest p'suaded of myne honest 

mynd, and my Lady of my true servic, that all things may be tried1 to 

y e vttermost, is my desire, and the only reward I craue for my iust, (I iust 

I dare tearme it) seruic. And thus in all humility submitting my Caus 

to yo r wisdome and my Conscinc to y' triall. I commit yo r L. to the 

Almghtie. 

' Yo r L. most dutifullie to commaund 

'Jhon Lyly.' 

' for yt I am for some few daies going into the countrie, yf yo r L. be not 

at leasure to admitt 2 me to yo r speach, at my returne I will giue my most 

dutifull attendaunc, at w ch time, it may be my honesty may ioyne wt yo r 

L. wisdome and both preuent, that n&ether, wold allow. In the meane 

season what color soever be alleged, if I be not honest to my L. and so 

meane to bee during his plesure, I desire but yor L. secret opinion, for as 

I know 8 my L. to be most honorable, so I besech god in time he be not 

abused. Loth I am to be a prophitt, and to be a wiche I loath. 

' Most dutifqll to commaund 

'JhonLylyV 

From his mention of going into the country for a few days we may 

perhaps infer, in spite of Fidus' expression 'vntil their graues' in 

Eupkues, vol. ii. p. 49,1. 18, that his father in Kent was still alive. The 

closing phrase about' a wiche' claims a word. Taken in conjunction 

with Harvey's remark in his ' Advertisement 5,' it seems to imply that 

dabbling in magic had been made a charge against Lyly; and in spite 

of his disclaimer of belief in such arts in Euphues (vol. ii. p. 118,1. 31), 

1 In the MS. the word ' tried' is preceded by ' boulted & ' (i. e. sifted) erased. 

2 Before the word ' admitt' the MS. has ' conferre ' erased. 

3 ' I know' is read by Fairholt, in brackets, in place of words obliterated in the 

MS. by the seal, but leaving sufficient trace to confirm the correctness of his 

reading. 

4 Lansdowne MS. xxxvi, No. 76. I must point out that the language of the 

letter is entirely opposed to the idea, commonly entertained hitherto, that Lyly was 

directly in Buileigh's employment. The 'your L.' several times addressed is 

obviously not the same person as the ' my L.' with whom the writer is in disgrace. 

Lyly's real master is Burleigh's son-in-law, Lord Oxford ; Burleigh, through whom 

he had obtained the post, and who was Oxford's guardian and constant providence, 

is the court to which Lyly appeals; and ' my Lady' is neither the Queen (Mr. 

Fleay overlooks the solecism of such a style) nor Lady Burleigh, but Anne, Lady 

Oxford, Burleigh's eldest daughter, who died in 1588. 

5 Archaica, ii. p. 135 (Grosart's ed. ii. pp. 209, 21 I, 217): 'I know one that 

hath written a pamphlet, entitled Cock-a-lilly; or The White Son of the Black 

Art . . . he that can tickle Marprelate with taunts [words applied by Lyly to 

Harvey in Pappe, see note 2 next page] can twitch double V to the quick' . . . and 

(p. 140) he says of this pamphlet 'he that penned (it) saw reason to display the 

black artist in his collier colours ': compare, too, ' would fair names [i. e. lily] 

were spells and charms against foul affections' (p. 140).


his introduction of the matter there, and later in Endimion, as also the 

Sibyl in Sapho, the wise woman Mother Bombie (where he is clearly 

trying to combat a popular prejudice), and even the Alchemist in 

Gallathea, might possibly lend some colour to the absurd accusation. 

. Here may best be detailed an occurrence which serves to show 

that Lyly, if faithful to his master, was not always perfectly discreet; 

one which may, indeed, afford us the clue to his present trouble. In 

1580 Gabriel Harvey had published some letters that had passed 

between himself and his friend Spenser l ; in the second of which, 

dealing with the earthquake, his personal disappointment at failing 

to secure the public oratorship at Cambridge had found vent in some 

reflections on the University and on Dr. Perne, then Vice-Chancellor, 

in particular; while the third letter, also his, had introduced among 

his remarks on English versification some satirical hexameters, 

entitled Speculum Tusmmsmi, describing an Italianate Englishman. 

It appears from what Lyly says in Pappe, and Nash, too, in one of 

his pamphlets, that these letters brought Harvey into trouble for 

libel 2 . Harvey himself admits that 'The sharpest parte of those 

vnlucky Letters was ouer-read at the Councell Table 3'; though he 

denies that he suffered imprisonment for them, as Nash had suggested, 

the Privy Council being satisfied with an apology.'* And that,' he continues, ' was all the F 

that an other company of speciall good fellows (whereof he was none of 

the meanest that brauely threatned to coniure vpp one, which should 

massacre Martin's wit or should bee lambackd himself with ten yeares 

prouision) would needs forsooth verye courtly perswade the Earle of 

Oxforde, that something in those Letters, and namely, the Mirrour of 

Tuscanismo, was palpably intended against him: whose noble Lordship 

1 protest I neuer meante to dishonour with the least preiudicial word of 

1 ' Three Proper and Wittie, familiar Letters lately passed between two University 

men: touching the Earthquake in Aprill last, and our English reformed versifying 

... 1580': they were reissued in June of the same year with the addition of two 

others, the first (like the first of the former three) from Spenser, and dated 

'Leycester House 5 of Oct. 1579,' and the second from Harvey, both on the subject 

of verification. See Grosart's ed. of Harvey's Works, vol. i. 

2 Pappe, vol. iii: 'And one will we coniure vp, that writing a familiar Epistle 

about the naturall causes of an Earthquake, fell into the bowells of libelling, 

which made his eares quake for feare of clipping, he shall tickle you with taunts ; 

all his works bound close, are at least sixa sheetes in quaito, & he calls them the 

first tome of his familiar Epistle .... If he ioyne with vs, periisti Martin, thy 

wit will be massacred: if the toy take him to close with thee, then haue I my wish, 

for this tenne yeres haue I lookt to lambacke him.' Cf. Nash's Strange Newes 

(Works, ii. 235, 239) and Haue with you (iii. 115). 

3 Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets, 1592; Grosart's Harney's Works, i. 180.

CAMPASPE, SAPHO, GAULATHEA 

my Tongue, or pen, but euer kept a minde full reckoning of many bounden 

duties toward The same: and that Fleeting also proued like the 

other .... a thing of nothing 1.' 

There was plausibility in the suggestion of a satire on Oxford, who 

had returned from an Italian tour in 1576 laden with new luxuries 

in dress and effeminacies of the toilet; but Harvey here denies the 

intention, and accuses Lyly of prompting the Earl's suspicions. He 

adds that no consequences followed. Probably he wrote to the 

Earl to vindicate himself, and by that letter sowed in Oxford's mind 

seeds of distrust of Lyly which bore fruit two years later. The ten 

years' grudge against Harvey, which Lyly acknowledges in Pappe 

(1589), may refer to some such representations made by Harvey in 

1580, or to some earlier grievance, now undiscoverable, which had 

possibly occasioned his own tale-bearing. 

I have passed lightly over Lyly's debut as a dramatist, but in truth 

the step was more important to him, to his contemporaries, and to 

ourselves, than the composition of his two novels. Oxford held the 

hereditary office of Lord Great Chamberlain, and was besides a special 

favourite. Presentation to Majesty would be no difficult thing for 

his secretary to compass; while the performance of his first play 

before her, probably on Jan. 1, 1581-2, would offer the natural 

occasion. In his second effort a classical tale is manipulated with 

supreme address to serve the purposes of royal flattery; and though 

it deals allegorically with no less a matter than the proposed French 

match, it does not seem to have called down the veto of the Master 

of the Revels nor the displeasure of the Queen; nor, if any political 

sense at all is to be attached to the delay in granting the licence to 

print 2 , need we interpret it as more than a sign of due caution in 

view of delicate French negotiations still pending. The effect of 

these two comedies on their auditors may best be estimated by 

a comparison of them with their shiftless, pointless, witless predecessors 

8 : and it is reflected in the circumstance that three editions 

of Campaspe were called for in the year of its publication (1584), 

1 Grosart's Harvey 's Works', p. 183. 

2 Stationers' Register (ed. Arber), ii. 430: ' 6 Aprilis 1584 Thomas cadman Lyllye 

yt is graunted vnto him yat yf he gett ye commedie of Sappho laufuUy alowed 

vnto him. Then none of this cumpanie shall Interrupt him to enjoye yt ... vj d .' 

8 For all this, and Lyly's general position and immense importance in the* 

drama's development, see the essay prefixed to the Plays, vol. ii. pp. 332 sqq.


while both it and Sapho were reprinted in 1591. In his next essay 

Lyly turned from history and classical allegory to pastoral. Gallathea, 

partly based on an Astrological Discourse issued by Richard Harvey 

in 1583, and on Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, reminds us, in 

its.allusion to ship-building, of the Commission appointed to overhaul 

the navy in the autumn of 1583, and of Burleigh's anxiety about it in 

the following spring 1. About the same time the two companies of 

children, those of the Chapel and St. Paul's, who had performed 

Lyly's earlier plays, seem to have fallen into some disgrace. They 

do not appear in the Revels Accounts as contributing to the 

Christmas festivities of 1583-4; and we shall probably be right in 

considering the publication of Campaspe and Sapho in 1584 as 

evidence that they were prohibited from acting, and therefore had 

resigned to the printer MSS. whose nting, otherwise, would have 

been considered prejudicial to their acting-receipts. On April 1, 

1585, Gabriel Cawood, the publisher of Euphues, enters on the 

Stationers' Register ' A Commoedie of Titirus and Galathea.' There 

is little doubt that this is practically identical with Lyly's Gallathea 2 ; 

and the fact of its entry is argument that it had already been played, 

if not by the Paul's or Chapel boys, perhaps by those of Lord Oxford. 

But no copy of 1585 survives, and it is doubtful whether the printing 

was then actually proceeded with. With great probability Mr. Baker 

argues 3 that the failure to publish may be connected with the issue 

on April 26, 1585, of a writ authorizing Thomas Giles, the Master of 

the Paul's Boys to l take vpp' fresh boys for the choir, a writ which 

may safely be taken as implying the renewal of their permission to 

act *. This would constitute a sufficient motive for either Lyly, or 

Giles (and the latter probably held the copyright), withdrawing the 

play from the printer with a view to its reproduction ; and the form 

in which it eventually appeared, in 1592, is probably a revision of 

the play as originally performed 5 . 

Other and stronger evidence points to Lyly's direct concernment 

in this writ issued to Thomas Giles. Among some references jotted 

down by Dr. Bloxam about Lyly, the present librarian of Magdalen 

reported to me one to the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 

1 Act i. sc. 4 ad fin., and Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1581-1590, under 

dates Oct. 6, Dec. 29, 1583, Jan. 30, Feb. 3, June 28, 1584. 

2 Slat. Reg., ed. Arber, ii. 440. Neither title is properly representative of the 

play. See introductory matter ('Date') to the play in vol. ii. 

3 Biogiaphical Introduction to Endymion (New York, 1894), PP cxxiv sqq. 

5 See below, p. 35. 

8 See the introductory matter to the play (under ' Date') in vol. ii.

VICE-MASTER OF PAUL'S BOYS, 1585 

Dec. 22, 1597; and the verification of that reference 1 has yielded 

a letter of the first importance to Lyly's biography, in that it settles 

definitely the vexed question of the dates of his two undated petitions 

to the Queen. As is well known, the first of those petitions alludes 

to a time when Lyly received some appointment in connexion with 

the Revels Office, coupled with the vague prospect of attaining in 

time to the Mastership, a hope for the fulfilment of which, he 

complains, he has waited ten years 2 ; while the second petition 

reproaches the Queen in yet bitterer terms—' Thirteen yeares 

yo r Hijrhnes Servant; butt yett nothinge.' The letter to which 

Dr. Bloxam referred is written to Secretary (Sir Robert) Cecil, dated 

Dec. 22, 1597, and says 'I haue not byn importunat, that thes 

12 yeres w h vnwearied pacienc have entertayned the p'roguing of her 

maties promises ; w ch if in the 13, may conclud wh the Parlement 8 , 

I will think the griefs of tymes past but pastymes.' Obviously this 

etter intervenes between the two petitions, and enables us to date 

Lyly's first appointment twelve years before it was written, i.e. in 

1585, the year to which our account has brought us. 

The nature of that appointment is to be inferred from the language 

held in the three documents, as well as from some expressions of 

Harvey. In the first petition he prays that if after ten years' tempest 

he must ' suffer shippwracke of my tymes, my hopes, and my Wittes/ 

the Queen may at least bestow on him some thatched cottage where he 

may * write prayers instead of playes,' and repent that he has ' played 

the foole soe longe.' In the letter to Cecil he says—' I find it folly that, 

one foot being in the grave, I should have the other on the stage.' 

In the second petition he says — ' After many yeares servyce, It 

pleased yo r Ma tie to except against Tentes and Toyles: I wishe 

that ffor Tentes I might putt in Tenem tes soe should I bee eased 

of some Toyles.' And Harvey says—' He hath not played the 

Vicemaster of Poules, and the P'oolemaster of the Theater for 

naughtes ; himselfe a mad lad, as ever twanged, neuer troubled with 

any substance of witt, or circumstance of honestie, sometime the 

1 State Papers, Domestic, 1595-1597, vol. cclxv. No. 61. 

2 ' I was entertayned yo r Ma tles servant by yo r owne gratious ffavo r stranghthened 

wt h Condicons, that I should ayme all my Courses att the Revells; (I dare not 

saye, w th a promise, butt a hopeffull Item, of the Reversion) ffor the w oh theis 

Tenn yeares, I haue Attended, w th an vnwearyed patience'; see transcript of the 

whole of both documents, below, pp. 64, 70. 

• Lyly represented Appleby in the Parliament summoned Oct. 24, 1597, and 

dissolved Feb. 9, 1597-8: see Parliaments of England, i. (1213-1702), p. 425 

(printed 1878). The full text of this letter to Sir Robert Cecil is given below, 

pp. 68-9. 

BOND 1 D


fiddlesticke of Oxford, now the very bable (i. e. bauble) of London ; 

would fayne forsooth haue some other esteemed, as all men value 

him V These passages, and the surviving plays, are the only direct 

evidence we have for deciding the nature of Lyly's avocations. If in 

my effort to interpret them the reader feels some tendency to prolixity, 

I trust he will pardon it in consideration of the fact that we are 

dealing with matters which have not yet been thoroughly explored. 

Mr. G. F. Baker is quite right, 1 think, in inferring from the lastquoted 

passage that Lyly occupied the post of Thomas Giles' 

assistant, or vice-master of the St. Paul's choir-boys. It is probable 

that in this capacity he had to teach the lads the elements of Latin ; 

perhaps also of logic : so much we may fairly infer from the fun he 

endeavours to extract from these subjects in the plays he wrote for 

the boys to act 2 . It is also probable that, with his musical faculties, 

he had to do with their choir-training. But his chief duty, there 

can be little doubt, was to coach them in the acting of plays to be 

performed before the Queen; plays rehearsed perhaps, in the first 

instance, in the great hall of the Revels Office at the dissolved 

Priory of St. John of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell 3 , but given also both 

before and after their performance at Court at their own singing- 

1 Harvey's Works (ed. Grosart), ii. p. 212 , or Brydges' Archaica, ii. p. 137. 

2 It may remove a dotibt if I note here that the cathedial choir-boys do not 

seem to have been, ordinarily, attendants of Dean Colet's school, situated at the 

east end of the building. That school was expressly founded to teach Greek and 

Latin, to which some Hebrew was added. Though intended, perhaps, by its 

founder for poor scholars, it very soon came to represent the highest schooltraining 

to be had in England at that date, and was on this account attended 

chiefly by the sons of citizens of the upper class. See the useful information 

about the early slatus of the school collected by the Rev. R. B. Gardiner in his 

Admission-Registers of St. Paul's School (Geo. Bell, 1884), pp. 4-5. The line 

of training for the St. Paul's choristeis would necessarily be different. Neither 

Thomas Giles nor John Lyly appear in the full lists of high-masters and underxnasters, 

from the foundation in 1509 onwards, supplied by Mr. Gaidiner; and the 

single mention recorded of the choir-boys implies, I think, their separate status and 

occupation. It occurs on p. 11, among Mr. Gardiner's 'Fasti,' and runs as 

follows:—' 1584. Thomas Gyles, Master of the Quiristers in S t Paul's Cathedral, 

is directed to instruct them in the Catechism, Writing and Music; and then suffer 

them to resort to St Paul's School that they may learn the principles of Grammar : 

and after, as they shall be forwards, learn the said Catechism in Latin, which 

before they learned in English, and other good books taught in the said School 

(Churton's Life of Nowel, p. 190).' This reads as if a new arrangement, made 

perhaps in consequence of their inhibition, which would leave them more time 

for serious study. On the removal of that inhibition and Lyly's appointment 

as vice-master, their attendance at Colet's school probably ceased, and their 

instruction devolved largely on Lyly himself. 

8 In Cunningham's Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court, p. 194, 

charges are entered for 'candles of all sortes foi the reheisalles and workes at St 

Johnest and for ' rushes for the great hall at S t Johnes the M rs Chamber 't office 

at the Court/ the latter being distinguished from the former in an earlier entry.

CHOIR-BOYS USED AS ACTORS 35 

room, behind the Convocation House at St. Paul's \ to which the 

public were admitted on payment. It is most natural to associate 

this appointment of Lyly's, which his own statements allow us to fix 

in 1585, with the issue of the writ to Thomas Giles on April 26 of 

that year 2 . That document, indeed, makes no mention of any 

dramatic function contemplated for the boys so taken up; but that 

such function was recognized or winked at, and regarded as a proper 

means of supplementing the master's salary, is evident from another 

important document; a petition, namely, of one Henry Clifton, in 

the year 1600 8 , praying for redress against Nathaniel Gyles, master 

of the Chapel children, and others who, on the authority of a similar 

writ, had taken boys from school, who were not musical, simply for 

acting-purposes. The petition alleged that Gyles and his 'confederates,' 

when threatened with complaints to the Council, 

' said . . that yf the Queene . . . would not beare them fufth in that 

accion, she . . . should gett another to execute her comission for them' 

(p. 130), and that ' they had aucthoritie sufficient soe to take any noble 

mans sonne in this land, and did then & there vse theise speeches, that 

were yt not for the benefitt they made by the sayd play howse, whoe would, 

should serve the Chappell w th childeren for them' (p. 131, Hist. Lon. Stage). 

From this language, and from the fact of the choir-boys of 

Windsor, the Chapel, or St. Paul's so frequently appearing before 

her, it seems clear that the Queen relied on these choirs not only 

for the proper rendering of church-services, but also in part for the 

provision of dramatic amusement for herself and her Court; and that 

she winked at the practice of the various masters augmenting their 

gains by the public acting of their pupils. The connexion between 

the choirs and the Revels Office had grown up gradually out of the 

dramatic work done by Richard Edwardes, a gentleman of the Chapel, 

and William Hunnis, who became master of the Chapel children 

in 1566 4 , and was probably quite informal; yet when Elizabeth 

1 Boswell's Malone, ii. p. 194; i.e. in the neighbourhood of Paternoster Row. 

3 The writ is printed in full by Collier, Hist. Dram. Poet., vol. i. pp. 258-9 

note. It professes to be 'Yoven under our Signet at our Manor of Grenewich, the 

26 th day of Aprill, in the 27 th yere of our reign,' i.e. 1585, a sovereign's year 

counting from the date of accession (Nov. 17, 1558) to the same date in the 

following year. It authorizes Thomas Giles 'to take vpp such apte and meete 

children, as are most fitt to be instructed and framed in the arte and science of 

musicke and singing, ... in anye Cathedral or Collegiate Churche or Churches 

and in everye other place or places of this our Realme of England and Wales.' 

3 The petition was published in the Athenaeum for Aug. 10,1889, by Mr. James 

Greenstreet, and reproduced almost in full in Mr. Fleay's History of the London 

Stage, pp. 126 seqq. 

4 See Mrs. C. C. Stope's paper on Hunnis in the Athenaeum for March 31, 1900. 

D 2


enteitained Lyly as her servant, with the injunction that he should 

4 aim all his courses at the Revels,' she no doubt expected to reap the 

fruit of his musical and dramatic abilities in the shape of plays, masks 

or ' deuises' written by himself, and performed under his direction by 

the Paul's Boys. All his plays, except The Woman in the Moone, 

are described on their title-pages as presented by these children; 

though the two earliest, Campaspe and Sapho, are shared with the 

Chapel children, for whom they were perhaps rather written, and 

the latest, Loves Metamorphosis, was transferred to them in or about 

1600. The circumstance of their being written for boys had the 

important results for Elizabethan drama that it favoured the free 

mingling of farcical with serious or ideal-comic matter, that it revived 

for the English stage the Plautine and Terentian type of the witty 

and rascally servant (of which, however, Edwardes' Damon and 

Pithias had already given some example), and that it caused the 

introduction of a number of songs intended to show off the boys' 

voices—a lyric element for which we cannot be too grateful. Very 

possibly Lyly himself composed the music for these songs; and the 

fact that the words, handed to the boys along with the music, were 

omitted by him from the MS. copy of the successive plays, may be 

the simple explanation of their omission also from the printed quarto 

editions. Writing for boys, on the other hand, would not be 

favourable to the introduction either of strong passion or subtle 

characterization, while it would tend, perhaps, in the direction of 

ribaldry and coarseness. Superficiality of tone, however, is a much 

more noticeable feature in Lyly's dramas than grossness, from which 

they are comparatively free. Probably the most important result 

of employing child-actors was histrionic rather than literary. In 

days when women were not yet countenanced on the stage, boys 

would be far better qualified to render female parts than men, alike 

by their stature, their voice, their general fairness and smoothness 

of complexion. Above all, these boy-companies supplied a trained 

body of actors from which the adult stage might be recruited 1 . 

The effect of this early training on the acting of the day must have 

been very great: and if some parents objected to the dramatic use 

made of their children, others would no doubt welcome it as 

1 Compare Hamlet's remark (Act ii. sc. 2. 360) on the unwisdom of the childactors 

' exclaiming against their own succession' and ' berattling the common 

stages/ i.e. abusing the older players with whom they must shoitly be ranked 

themselves.

TAKES AN OCCASIONAL PART 37 

opening a career to them after their voices had broken. The sense 

of incongruity between their sacred and secular functions, of the irreverence 

of rehearsing (as was sometimes done) in consecrated buildings, 

and of the impropriety of devoting so much time in the impressionable 

years of childhood to occupations so frivolous, was partly deadened, 

perhaps, for Elizabethans by that sacred origin which the drama 

still clearly recalled, and which had given rise to these practices. 

With the complete secularization and growing popularity of the 

stage, however, it could not fail to make itself felt, and found at 

last official expression in 1626, when the warrant issued to Nathaniel 

Gyles for enlisting fresh boys for the Chapel choir, distinctly provides 

that they shall not be employed as comedians ! . 

Besides writing plays and coaching the boys in them, I conceive 

that Lyly, 'the Foolemaster of the Theater,' occasionally took a part 

himself. His talk about ' repenting that he has played the fool so 

long,' and ' having one foot on the stage while the other is in the 

grave,' carries something of the angry sense of one who has 

'gone here and there, 

And made himself a motley to the view' ; 

and Harvey's remark, ' What more easy than to find the man by his 

humour, the Midas by his eares, the calf by his tongue,' &c, and 

the description of him as one ' that will suffer none to play the Rex 

but himselfe,' suggest that in the Long Vacation of 1589 he may 

actually have seen his old friend and present opponent in the titlerole 

of Midas at the singing-room in Paul's 2 . A function at first 

welcome to Lyly's high spirits and love of fun would easily become 

distasteful to him as time went on, and may even have somewhat 

impaired Elizabeth's sense of his fitness for the more authoritative 

position to which he aspired. 

But from his statement that the Queen had 'excepted against 

Tentes and Toyles,' we must infer a further and more definite 

connexion with the Revels Office than would be afforded by the 

vice-mastership of the Paul's Boys. In an article written some seven 

years ago 8 , I suggested that the phrase ' Tentes and Toyles' was to 

be interpreted of the furniture and costumes used in the Court 

performances; that Lyly had charge of these and was responsible, 

1 Symonds' Shakespeare' s Predecessors, pp. 301-3. 

8 Harvey's Works (ed. Grosart), ii. pp. 128, a 215; Arckaica, ii. 84, 139; and 

see under 4 Date' of Midas, vol. iii. 

3 Printed in the Quarterly Review for Jan. 1896, p. 112.

38 


generally, for the mounting of plays and masks at Court. I was not 

then aware of the existence of a contemporary Office of Tentes and 

Toyles, originally separate and devoted to the custody of the royal 

paraphernalia for hunting or camping in war, but later amalgamated 

with the Revels Office, an amalgamation partly due no doubt to the 

change of sex in the sovereign, and to the perception that much of 

the costly material in the hunting-store might be made available for 

stage-shows and masks at Court 1 Stow 2 , speaking of the dissolution 

of the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem in 1541, says— 

' This Priory, Church and House of s t John was preserved from Spoil 

or down-pulling so long as King Henry viii Reigned, and was imployed 

as a Store House for the Kings Toyls and Tents for hunting, and for the 

Wars &.' 

He then proceeds to relate the partial destruction of the church by 

gunpowder in Edward VI's reign, and its partial restoration under 

Mary; but says no more of the other buildings of the Priory, which 

the plates in Dugdale's Monasticon 3 show to have been extensive. 

Now, though we know that in 1547 the apparel and furniture for 

revels and masks at Court had been removed from Warwick Inn to 

the dissolved monastery of Blackfriars, 'the whole house, scite or 

circuit compass and precinct' of which was granted to Sir Thomas 

Cawarden on May 12, 1551 4 , it is clear that a later transference of 

the stuff must have been made to St. John's, which is the seat of the 

Revels Office all through the period covered by Mr. Cunningham's 

Accounts•, at least from 1571 to 1610 5 ; a transference probably 

dictated by the intention to amalgamate the properties of the 

1 The French toi/es, which led me to the suggestion (though Malone, I find, 

mentions the Office), is, it appears, the origin of our ' toil,' a net or snare. Skeat 

quotes s.v. from Cotgrave—* toile, cloth, linen cloth, also a staulking-horse of 

cloth; toile de araigne, a cob-web; pl. toiles, toils, 01 a hay to inclose or intangle 

wild beasts in.' 

2 Survey, ed. Strype, Bk. iv. ch. 3, p. 63. 

3 Vol. ii. p. 504 (1661). 

4 Collier, Hist. Dram. Poet. i. 139. 

5 The fees paid to John Dauncey, 'Porter of St Jhons gatte,' which still 

stands (to the south of St. John's Square, which occupies the site of the Priory), 

commence in the earliest year for which the accounts are recovered, 1571: see 

Extracts, pp. 16, 194, 201, 207, and the warrants quoted in Mr. Cunningham's 

Introduction, pp. xxi-ii, to allow the Revels officers yearly compensation for 

the loss of their official residences through James l's gift of St. John's to Lord 

d'Aubigny in 1610. Enrolments, vol. ii. p. 108, 'Whereas William Hunning and 

Edward Kyrkham, Officers of the Revells, aie by these Lettres patent ... to have 

the use of such houses and lodgings as anciently did belong to either of their 

places, Arid whereas upon his Mat 8 gift of the house of St Johns to the Lord 

Aubigny they have been dispossessed of the houses and lodgings formerly appointed 

to their offices. . . . These are therefore to will and require you to allow unto

OFFICE OF TENTES AND TOYLES 39 

Revels Office with the store of Tentes and Toyles already at 

St. John's. Of Tentes and Toyles as a special department the 

Revels Accounts are silent; but I find a good deal about them in 

a MS. which from internal evidence I date in 1573 1 . It is described 

in the Catalogue of Lansdowne MSS. as treating ' Of the first institution 

of the Revels, and in what respects regulations in the office 

should take place.' After setting forth that originally the Prince, 

when disposed for pastime, would appoint a different Master of the 

Revels as each occasion arose, the document continues— 

' It is alleged by some that afterwardes the Revelles togethers with the 

Tentes and Toyles was made an office and certen of the kinges hottseholde 

servauntes appoynted by patent to have care thereof. Off vvhiche 

office there was a Seriaunt [Serjeant] Yeoman groomes etc. . . . John 

Barnard . . . was the first Clerke Comptroller of the said office for the 

Revelles and Tentes by patent . . . 

The Quenes maiestye that nowe [is] devided the said Office into 

diverse Offices videlt 

The Revelles to Sir Thomas Benger knight. 

The Tentes to M r Henrye Sakeford of her majesties privie Chamber. 

The Toyles to M r Tamworth of her maiesties privie Chamber. 

Yf the offices of the Tentes and Toyles might in tyme be vnyted agayne 

into the said office of the Revelles The prince might therebye have an 

office of better accompte. The officers might also be the better enhabled 

to do her Maiestye good service and her highnes charges might somewhat 

be dyminished. 

The habilitye of the officers of the Revelles for their trust and skill 

might sufficiently serve for execucion of anye of the other offices. 

The woorkemen servinge in the Revelles may very aptly serve in the 

other offices. 

either of them fifteen pounds by the year in the Accounts of the Master of the 

Revells . . . from Whitehall the 10th of November 1610': and from the next 

document quoted it appears that Sir Geprge Buck, the Master, was allowed on 

this account £30 a year, to which £20 was added in 1612. 

1 Lansdowne MS. 83, No. 59, fols. 158-161, closely written on both sides. 

Collier seems to allude to this document (i. 290), but confuses it with others, bound 

with it in the MS., of the date 1597. I date it (1) by the absence of any later 

name than Sir Thomas Benger as Master, who died in March 1577; (2) by the 

fact that, in proposing some ordinances for the conduct of the office, the writer, 

while leaving the precise date to be filled in, does not hesitate to give the year 

of the reign ('the fiftente'), as expecting that before its expiration the Council 

will have accepted or rejected his proposals. They are distinctly propositions, 

though they embody some previous regulations or suggestions ; and he heads them 

with the following preamble :—' by her highnes with the aduise of her most honorable 

pryvye counsel], the daye of Anno dm in the fiftente yere of her 

most gracious Reigne appoynted established and stractlye comaunded to be observed 

. . . accordinge to certen articles and Jnstruccjons hereunder ly myted,' &c. (fol. 

160 recto).


The prouision maye be made by one Comission for all. 

The storehouses of theym all be presentlye [i. e. at this moment] in 

one place. 

The Clerke Comptroller and the Clerke of the Revelles have hitherto 

bene and yet are officers both for the Revelles and tentes. 

Syr Thomas Carden as I am enformed hadde the dealinge of all three 

offices at once' (fol. 158). 

The writer here advocates the annulling of the formal distinction 

between two or three offices which are in practice, so far as the inferior 

officers are concerned, identical; but that the formal distinction was 

maintained, at least between the Revels on one side, and the Tentes 

on the other, is clear from two other documents. The first 1 is 

a certificate by William Dethick, Garter King of Arms, and William 

Camden, Clarencieux, dated May 20, 1601, and establishing the 

position and precedence of ' M r Hen. Sackford, master of tents 

and pavilions to the Queen' by a reference to the position assigned 

him by the Earl Marshal in the thanksgiving procession to St. Paul's 

after the Armada, November 18, 1588 2 . The second document, 

originally issued, it seems, before the separation of the Offices, is 

thus described 3 : 

' March 25, 1560. Westminster. 58. Grant to Thos. Blagrave of the 

office of the clerk of the tents and pavilions, also of games, revels, masks, 

triumphs, tilts, touriieys, banqueting houses, sports and pastimes, from 

the death of Thos. Phelipps, the last clerk ; fee 8s. a day, and 24s. for 

a yearly livery, with convenient house, cellar, stable, gardens, &c. to be 

assigned by the master of tents and revels. Interlined with a grant of 

the same office by James I, 30 May 1603, to IVm. Honings on the death 

of Thos. Blagrave [3 sheets, Latin].' 

Clearly, while the two Offices had remained nominally distinct, each 

boasting its own Master, yet the subordinate officers were the same 

for each up to and after James I's accession. Now Lyly's petition 

shows that he was wholly or in part responsible for the condition of 

the ' Tentes and Toyles,' else would the Queen not have blamed him 

on this account; and the posts of Master and of Clerk were occupied, 

as we have seen, by Henry Sackford and Thomas Blagrave. There 

1 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1601-3, pp. 42-3, vol. cclxxix. No. 86. 

2 Burleigh was then Earl Marshal, and his formal list for the order of the procession 

is preserved in Harl. MS, 1877, fol. 48. At line 23 we find 'M r of the 

Tentes and M r of the Reuells ': they are preceded by ' M r of the Rolls and Lo: 

cheife Jjustice of y e Kinges bench,' and followed by ' Lieutenant of thordinance. 

Ande M r of the Armorye.' 

8 Calendar of State Papers•, Domestic, Addenda, 1547-1565, p. 501, vol. ix. No. 58.

DUTIES AND RECEIPTS OF REVELS OFFICERS 41 

remain those of Yeoman and Clerk-Controller; and since the former 

was occupied by Edward Kirkham from 1586 to 1612, Lyly must 

have filled the latter. In the Revels Accounts, Edward Buggyn is 

Clerk-Controller from 1571 to November, 1583 1; but in the year 

October, 1584, to October, 1585, though the Clerk-Controller's salary 

is entered, Buggyn's name disappears from the accounts, which are 

signed by Tylney, Blagrave, and Kirkham only. So, too, in the 

period November, 1587, to October, 1588, the next reproduced by 

Mr. Cunningham, the salary is paid, but no name is given. The 

next batch given covers the year November, 1604, to November, 

1605, and Edmond Pagenham is named as Clerk-Controller at that 

date; but there seems no reason why Lyly should not have discharged 

the duties and drawn the salary from 1585 onwards, for 

an indefinite period, though we lack the signature which would 

prove it. 

The functions of the different officers of the Revels are hardly 

distinguishable. An attempt to distinguish, made in the abovequoted 

MS. of 1573, leaves no clear result; and it is difficult to 

disentangle the writer's suggested reformations from his statements 

of existing practice 2 . The Revels Accounts reveal much the same 

uncertainty of function. Where Edward Buggyn, the Clerk-Controller, 

appears, it is generally as paymaster, but sometimes as 

providing designs for masques 3 . Possibly the actual ordering, or 

authorizing of purchase, lay with him; but generally speaking, in 

view of the ' privitye' or intercommunication of the officers recommended, 

the functions of the three subordinates may be supposed 

1 Cunningham's Extracts, pp. 16, 172, 186. 

2 ' The Clerke Comptroller,' he says, on fol. 159 verso, 'is to be continuallye 

attendaunte in the office of the Revelles in the tyme of service who in dede shoulde 

have the speciall charge of husbandinge of the stuffe or prouision of the office 

and of checke and rate for the princes comoditye but to prouide no stuffe of anye 

greate charge to the prince nor deliver the like to be occupyed [i.e. cut up] without 

warraunte from the M r or Seriaunte. The Clerke Comptroller to kepe with the 

clerke of the same office a Jornall booke of the charge of the office, both their 

Joraall bookes to be extant at all tymes of the woorkes in the office to the ende 

the M r and Seriaunt maye be alwayes privye therevnto. The Clerke comptroller 

to make noe prouision of anye matte? of weight in charge to the Prince without 

the consent of the M r and Seriaunte and the privitye of the rest of the officers for 

the price.' On fol. 161 v. however, we learn that the actual custody of the properties 

devolves rather upon the Yeoman—' Item concernynge the lendinge furthe of 

the Quenes Maiesties stuffe in the office of the Revelles The stuffe once made and 

put in Inventorye resteth onely in the Yeomans charge who hath the kepinge of 

it by patent and therefore the rest of the officers not to be charged for any misdemeano 

r concerninge the same Nevertheless suche order may be taken therefore 

as shall seeme meete and convenyent.' 

3 Exit acts, pp. 173, 182.


largely interchangeable. The Clerk-Controller, however, seems to 

have been the second official in the Office, though with the same 

rate of pay as the Clerk and Yeoman, two shillings per day and 

the same per night, so long as the special periods of service lasted, 

i.e. (1) at Christmas, Twelfth-tide and Shrove-tide, (2) at the Airing, 

or annual review of the properties in the autumn for the purposes of 

preservation, repair or readaptation. The Master's pay was at just 

double that rate ; his duties including, at least after Tylney's appointment 

in 1579, the choice and censorship of plays to be performed 

before her Majesty. From November, 1584 to February, 1584-5 

the three subordinate officers' pay, reckoned for fifty-one days and 

fourteen nights, amounts to ' vj ]i . x s .' apiece : for the ' airing ' period 

of 1585, which first concerns Lyly, they are paid, for twenty days 

and no night-service, ( xl 8 .' apiece. In the year November, 1587, to 

November, 1588, Clerk and Clerk-Controller receive pay for twentyeight 

days and fourteen nights during Christmas and Shrove-tide, and 

for twenty days later in the year. From his remark about 'a thatched 

cottage' in his first, and about ' tenements' in his second petition, 

I infer, either that the Clerk-Controller, unlike the others, had no 

official quarters assigned him in St. John's, or, at least, that none 

were found for Lyly on his appointment. Had he a tenement, 

he says, he would be eased of some toils; i. e. living on the spot, 

he would be relieved from the daily journey to and from the Office. 

But as his actual residence seems to have been in St. Bartholomew's 

Hospital, within half a mile of the Priory to the south, the actual 

hardship of walking was not great; and what he really desired was 

to be put on a level with the other officers, and get his house rentfree 

in St. John's. 

Besides what he received from the Office—and in estimating the 

figures given above and all other payments of Elizabeth's time, 

we must remember that the purchasing power of money was about 

eight times what it is at present 1 —Lyly would probably receive 

some fixed salary as vice-master of the Boys, and a share at least 

in the profits derived from their acting. The fee almost always paid 

for a performance at Court was ^10, two-thirds of which were 

calculated as expenses and one-third as ' reward.' But the popular 

receipts from repeated performances would be far beyond the sum 

to be made by a single Court performance. In 1600 the prospective 

profits from the acting of the Chapel children were sufficient to 

1 Sidney Lee's Life of Shakespeare, pp. 3, 197.

LYLY'S MARRIAGE 43 

induce Nathaniel Gyles and his partners to lease the new Blackfriars 

Theatre from Burbage; and there seems no reason why the Paul's 

Boys in 1585 should have been less remunerative, especially if, as 

is probable, the rival company was then under inhibition. Lyly's 

share of the acting-profits may have been augmented by sums paid 

by Thomas Giles to him, as author of some of the plays given. Yet 

another source of income was, no doubt, the publication of Euphues 

and the successive editions of the plays. When we remember that 

eleven editions of each Part of Euphues were issued before Lyly's 

death in 1606, that there were three editions of Campaspe in the year 

of its first publication, that both it and Sapho were reprinted in 1591, 

and that Pappe reached three editions in 1589, we might reasonably 

suppose Lyly to have received a good deal from this source; but 

at this date an author's notion of rights in his own brainwork had 

hardly advanced beyond the point of expecting a certain sum paid 

down at the outset. Probably Cawood, Cadman and the other 

publishers reaped all the.substantial profits of the greatest success 

of the Elizabethan period, together with that pleasing sense of 

public benefaction that generally accompanies large receipts. But 

putting together his various sources of income, there seems no reason 

why Lyly in 1585-90 should not have been receiving good reward 

for his labours, enough perhaps to justify him in venturing on marriage. 

The first hint of the sort comes from Harvey's reply to Pappe 

in 1589, where he says his wit is ' paunchd like his wiues spindle 1 '; 

but we have no sound evidence before Sept. 10, 1596, on which 

day * John the sonne of John Lillye gent was christened,' as stated 

in the register of St. Bartholomew the Less, the christening of several 

other children being recorded in the same register at later dates. 

In a letter he wrote to Sir Robert Cecil in 1602 there is mention 

of his wife as having personally presented yet another petition of 

his to the Queen; from which we might perhaps argue that she 

held some position at the Court, which gave her readier access 

than he could claim. Were that the case, he may not have been 

quite without materials for the lectures of Diana and Ceres to their 

nymphs, or the talk between Sapho and Sophronia and the ladies 

of their Courts. But I have been unable to find the record of 

Lyly's marriage 2 , and speculation is idle. What is more to the 

1 Harvey's Works (ed. Grosart), ii. 130. Mr. Baker, I believe, first called 

attention to the passage in his Introduction to Endytnion, p. cxlix. 

2 I have looked for it in vain in the register of St. Bartholomew the Less over


point is that the entry of baptisms and burials connected with him 

in the register of St Bartholomew the Less almost amounts to proof 

that he was living, from 1596 onwards, in the Hospital of St. Bartholomew, 

to which that church, standing as now within its precinct, 

served as a parish church \ The most natural occasion for his 

removal from the Savoy to Smithfield would be his assumption of 

duties at the Revels Orifice in 1585; and that would be the natural 

occasion, too, for the severance of his special connexion with Lord 

Oxford, Harvey's allusion, in 1589, to 'the minion secretary' being, 

perhaps, merely retrospective. From Harvey's language, at any rate, 

it seems clear that Lyly had ceased, in 1589, to reside in the Savoy. 

One other function of Lyly's seems hinted at in the passage where 

Harvey calls him 'a professed iester, a Hick-scorner, a scoff-maister, 

a playmunger, an Interluder; once the foile of Oxford, now the stale 

of London, and euer the Apesdogg of the presse, Cum Priuilegio 

perennitatisV Preceded as this is by the direct mention of the 

bishops and archbishops 'entertaining sjich an odd light-headed 

fellow for their defence,' it is most natural to connect it with the 

censorship of the Press exercised by the hierarchy as ecclesiastical 

judges in their several dioceses 8 ; and to suppose that Lyly had, 

before 1589, secured some work as reader of new books for the 

Bishop of London before they received the official imprimatur. 

Such work would bear no relation, of course, to his duties in the 

Revels Office or with the Paul's Boys; but would lead naturally 

enough to his taking part in the Marprelate controversy. 

Returning now to the record of his purely dramatic labours, we 

may assume that Gallathea^ withdrawn from the printer's hands 

about the end of April, 1585, underwent some revision, and was 

produced at Court on Jan. 1, 1585-6 ('new yeeres day' of the title- 

the years 1574-1606 ; in that of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, from 1574-1603 ; and 

for the years 1582-1590 in those of St. James', Clerkenwell, St. Giles', Cripplegate, 

and St. Mary le Strand, where are preserved the earlier registers of the 

Savoy Chapel, kept previous to 1680. The register of St. Bartholomew the Great 

only begins in 1610; that of St. Sepulchre's only in 1662 ; that of St. John's, 

Clerkenwell, which occupies the site of the old Priory Church, only in 1723. 

I have'also caused examination to be made of the registers of Maidstone, Boxley, 

Ashford and Wye in Kent, without result. 

1 .See note on p. 67 below. 

2 Grosart's Hatvey's Works, ii. p. 132 {Archaica, i. 86). 

8 Stationers' Register, ed. Arber, vol. iii. p. 13 (lntrod.). In the same volume, 

under dates Aug. 22, Sept. 24, 26, 1597, July 22, Dec. 16, 1508, Sept. 18, 1600, 

books are licensed 'vnder the hand of Master Peter Lyllie. The name Peter 

occurs but twice, and the surname is invariably spelt with Ly-: but this is probably 

one of the Bishop of London's chaplains.

ORDER OF THE PLAYS 45 

page) or on the same date in the following year. His next effort 

was either Endimion or the pastoral Loves Metamorphosis, though 

the latter play, as it now stands, probably includes additions made 

in 1599 or early in 1600. There are fairly strong reasons for connecting 

Sapho, Gallathea, Loves Metamorphosis and Endimion as 

links of a continuous chain. The first three contain allusions which 

fix their order as here given *, though Endimion may have preceded 

Loves Metamorphosis. All four may perhaps be regarded as reflective 

of Elizabeth's changing attitude towards love and marriage, 

or at least of what a courtier might deem to be such. Sapho ends 

with the defeat of Venus, and the assertion of the Queen's independence. 

Diana in Gallathea develops this attitude into one of active 

hostility, a composition with Venus and her rascally son being with 

difficulty effected at the close. Ceres in Loves Metamorphosis 

exhibits a new reverence for the power of the god, and an anxiety 

to save her wilful nymphs from the consequences of contemning it. 

Cynthia, in Endimion, has a similar tenderness for love and lovers, 

condescends to minister by a kiss to the restoration of the hero, 

and accepts his faithful devotion. In the last three plays, too, there 

is a more conspicuous use made of stage-properties, which may 

possibly reflect Lyly's new connexion with the ' stuffe' of the Revels 

Office. Again, I am strongly impressed with the euphuistic character 

of the writing in Loves Metamorphosis, which is to my mind far 

more marked than in Endimion, Midas or Mother Bombie, more 

even than in Gallathea, and contains, too, reminiscences of the 

sentiments or allusions in Euphues that are more salient than in 

the other plays. I believe this may be due to his having recently 

revised that work. The edition of 1595-7 reveals a far larger 

proportion of corrections than do any of the first five editions— 

corrections which may quite as well have been made in the sixth 

edition (Part I, 1585, Part II, 1586), which I have not seen. * Another 

argument for the early production of Loves Metamorphosis is that 

it seems to be alluded to in The Woman in the Moone 2 ; and lastly 

it is announced on the title-page as 'first playd by the Children 

1 In Gall. v. 3, Venus says to Cupid, ' Syr boy where haue you beene? alwaies 

taken, first by Sapho, nowe by Diana.' In Laves Met. ii. 1, Ceres says, ' Diana's 

Nymphes were as chast as Ceres virgines, as faire, as wise: how Cupid tormented 

them, I had rather you should heare then feele ; but this is truth, they all yeelded 

to loue': and in v. 1, Cupid says, * Diana hath felt some motions of loue, Vesta 

doth, Ceres shall.' Gall. v. 3 and Loves Met. v. 1 were compared by Mr. Fleay 

(Chronicle, ii. 41). 

2 Act iii sc. 1: ' Ceres and her sacred Nymphes.*


of Paules.' These boys were permanently inhibited before Oct. 4, 

1591; and though it is just possible that the first performance may 

have been given on the removal of their inhibition, which may have 

been as early as 1599, yet the argument from style makes strongly 

for a date before it. We can hardly fix more precise limits than to 

say that the first form of the play was composed between 1584 and 

1588, and probably given at Court between 1586 and 1589; while 

the present form was perhaps revived by the Paul's Boys in 1600, 

and transferred to the Chapel Children in that or the following year 5 . 

In Endimion we have a third pastoral; if a play may deserve that 

name, which lacks indoor scenes indeed, but also lacks entirely the 

pastoral and mythological element, the characters being one and all 

conceived as members of a terrestrial Court, though its mistress 

receives the flattery of some divine attributes. The piece constitutes 

a fuller display of power than Lyly has yet made. It is an elaborate 

and ingenious allegory of the tender relation between Leicester and 

Elizabeth, as also of the rivalry between the latter and the Queen 

of Scots; and the interweaving of these two subjects, if it involves 

some straining of fact, gives opportunity for introducing other conspicuous 

figures of the Court, notably the Earl and Countess of 

Shrewsbury, and Sir Philip Sidney, Leicester's nephew. The credit 

of first detecting an allegory belongs to the Rev. N. J. Halpin, who 

expounded his version of it to the Shakespeare Society in 1843 ! . 

From that interpretation, and still more from Mr. Baker's suggested 

emendations of it, I feel compelled to diverge in some important 

particulars; the question, too large to be discussed here, is treated 

in an essay attached to the play itself in vol. iii. Suffice it that 

the commencement of Mary's custody by Sir Amyas Paulet (whom 

I identify with Corsites) on April 17, 1585, and perhaps the departure 

of Sidney and of Leicester for the Netherlands on November 16 and 

December 10 of the same year, suggest as limits for its composition 

May and November, 1585 ; a date that would indicate it as Lyly's first 

complimentary offering after his appointment to a post in the Revels 

Office in April 4. The title-page announces it as played on ' Candle- 

1 On that date three of Lyly's plays, part of their repertoire, are entered on the 

Stationers* Register, and in the printer's preface to Endimion, the first published, 

we hear that the plays in Paul's are ' dissolued.' 

2 See below, pp. 73-4. 

8 Oberoris Vision: illustrated by a comparison with Lylies Endymion. 

4 My interpretation of the allegory imposes a strict downward limit for its 

composition and performance, in Sidney's death at Zutphen, September, 1586, and 

Mary's condemnation at Fotheringay on October 25 of the same year; and an

LYLY IN PARLIAMENT 47 

mas day at night.' I believe the Candlemas in question to be 

Feb. 2, 1585-6, though both Leicester and Sidney were then absent 

from Court. It is not, however, essential to suppose Leicester's 

connivance in the play; it is even doubtful how he would regard it. 

The probable cessation of Lyly's direct relation with Oxford in 1585 

may have made it more possible for him to appear as an adherent 

of the Leicester faction; but we have no evidence that the flattery, 

if intended, and if acceptable, procured him the notice or the interest 

of the favourite, who died on Sept. 4, 1588. 

Endimion, or at any rate Loves _Metamorp ho sis, was followed by 

a period in which his invention was allowed to lie fallow, and the 

resumption of his pen is accompanied by a confession of idleness \ 

He takes it up to celebrate the national triumph over Philip of Spain 

in a satire on the greed, ambition, and obstinate stupidity of that 

monarch, for which he professes to find an original in the pingue 

mgenium of Ovid's Midas. England, her sovereign, and people, are 

complimented under the name of the heroic islanders of Lesbos, 

while Elizabeth's private personality is perhaps flattered in the 

discreet and amiable character of Midas' daughter, the Princess 

Sophronia. The play, which contains an allusion to Drake and 

Norris' expedition to Portugal, April-July, 1589, and is itself 

alluded to by Harvey writing under date November 5 of that year, 

must have been composed between May and September; and was 

presented at Court perhaps on January 6, 1589-90, 'Twelfe Day at 

night,' according to the title-page. 

Before Midas was written, Lyly had assumed a share in duties of a 

different order, which could not fail to quicken his attention to public 

affairs. The official lists of returns of members to Parliament record 

the election of ' John Lyly, gent.,' in company with John Mervin, 

esq., of the Middle Temple, to represent the borough of Hindon, in 

upward in Shrewsbury (Geron)'s return to Court, on Sept. 14, 1584. I am obliged 

to regard Mr. Bakers theory of a date as early as 1579, to which Prof. A. \V. 

Ward accedes, as quite untenable. It involves an early connexion between Lyly 

and Leicester, for which Mr. Baker brings not one scrap of real evidence; and 

also the absurd supposition that a young writer of twenty-five could conceive, 

compose, and rehearse for proper performance, so elaborate and during an effort as 

this, as a first work, in the short space of three weeks. Other considerations 

make against the notion (see p. 22 above) ; most of all, perhaps, the difficulty of 

supposing that Leicester would venture on any dramatic explanation of, or apology 

for his recent marriage, in 1579 when the wound inflicted on the Queen's feelings, 

a month or two before, was still fresh. 

1 Prologue to Midas: • We are iealous of your iudgementes, because you are 

wise; of our owne performance, because we are vnperfect; of our Authors deuice, 

because he is idle.'


Wiltshire, in February, 1588-9; of 'John Lillye esq.' in company 

with Sir Thomas Weste knt. for Aylesbury, in February, 1592-3; 

of * John Lyllye gent.' in company with James Colebronde esq. for 

Appleby, in September, 1597 ; and of ' John Lillie esq.' with Alexander 

Hampden esq. for Aylesbury again in October, 1601. There seems 

no good reason for supposing that the person so elected could not 

be our author. The name was pretty common at this date; but 

with the exception of the famous grammarian and first Head-Master 

of St. Paul's School, William Lilly, who died in 1522, of his son 

George Lilly, prebendary of Canterbury and of St. Paul's, who died 

in 1559, and of Edmund Lilly, Fellow of Magdalen, and afterwards 

Master of Balliol, its representatives belong almost entirely to the 

yeoman-class, whether in Kent, Sussex, Essex, Cambridgeshire, 

Gloucestershire, or Dorset. Richard Lylly, yeoman, of Gloucestershire, 

leased some lands in Wiltshire from the Crown in 1583 and 

1597; but his will, proved May 29, 1599, mentions no son or other 

relative of the name of John, and Hindon is at the opposite side of 

the county. The returns for the three boroughs in preceding or 

succeeding Parliaments contain no such name, and so lend no colour 

to the idea that the person or persons elected on these four occasions 

belonged to a family or families of local importance. But Mr. 

G. F. Baker points out that they were all small boroughs under 

family influence 1 ; and our author's acquaintance in London, his 

position about the Court and his literary distinction would facilitate 

his entry into politics. In the second instance, strong confirmation 

is afforded by the fact that his fellow member for Aylesbury was 

a brother of his old patron, the dedicatee of Euphues 2; and the 

1 Endymion, p. cliii. 

2 Thomas, Lord de la Warre 

Thomas, Lord de la Warre Sir George West 

(died childless, 1554) 1 

Margaret West William West, Lord de la Warre Sir Thomas West, 

(Lyly's patron : died, 1595) of Seltwood, Hants, 

=Elizabeth, d. of Thos. Strange, joint M.P. with Lyly 

of Chesterton for Aylesbury, 1592-3 

I (died 1622) 

Thomas, Lord de la Warre Jane = 1. Sir Rd. Wenman, f. of Basse's patron 

«Anne, d. of Sir Francis Knolles 2. Jas. Cressie 

3. Sir Thos. Tasburgh. 

(Dugdalc's Baronage, pp. 139-144.)

THE MARPRELATE CONTROVERSY 49 

reference in Lyly's letter to Sir Robert Cecil of December 22, 1597, 

to the Parliament which was then sitting, would be all the more 

natural if the writer were a member of it. His duties would not be 

particularly arduous. Of the four consecutive Parliaments to which 

he was elected, the first, second, and fourth sat for less than two 

months; and the third, summoned on October 24, 1597, was 

dissolved on February 9 following 1 . But his entry into political 

life must have brought him into closer contact with the Puritan 

feeling that was gathering strength in the closing years of Elizabeth, 

and may have led to his taking part in the famous dispute known, 

from the nom de plume of the original Puritan disputants, as the 

Martin Marprelate Controversy. 

That dispute was only a critical phase of the old-standing quarrel 

between fixed ritual, authoritative teaching, official dignity and 

emoluments on the one hand, and independence and simplicity of 

worship, individual interpretation, and severity of life on the other. 

In the Marprelate tracts, as later in Milton's pamphlets, it took the 

form of an agitation against episcopal authority. The Defence of 

the Government established in the Churche of England, issued by 

John Bridges, dean of Sarum, in 1587, called forth in the autumn 

of 1588 the Epistle and Epitome of Martin Marprelate, the earliest 

tracts wherein the pseudonym makes its appearance. The authorship 

of these and the others on the same side seems to lie between 

the lawyer, Henry Barrow, who had since 1586 been a prisoner in 

the Fleet, the Rev. John Penry, graduate of Cambridge and Oxford, 

and Job Throckmorton, a wealthy Puritan squire at Haseley in 

Warwickshire 2 . Both Epistle and Epitome are libels of a violent 

character on Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury, and Aylmer, 

bishop of London, The direct censorship of the press, instituted by 

1 Parliaments of England (printed by order of the House of Commons, 1878). 

Vol. i. A.D. 1213-1702, pp. 425, 427, 435, 437. 

The first of the four was summoned Nov. 12, 1588, and by Prorogation, Feb. 4, 

1588-9. The date of the return for Hindon is Feb. 1. It was dissolved 

March 29, 1589. 

The second was summoned Feb. 19, 1592-3, and dissolved April io, 1593. 

The third was summoned Oct. 24, 1597, and dissolved Feb. 9, 1597-8; the 

date of Lyly's return for Appleby being Sept. 22, 1597. 

The fourth was summoned Oct. 27, 1601, and dissolved Dec. 19 of the same 

year; the date of Lyly's return for Aylesbury being Oct. 24, 1601. 

2 See for a discussion of the question Professor Arber's Introductory Sketch to 

the Martin Marprelate Controversy, 1588-1590 (1879), which is a collection of 

materials rather than a consecutive history, but includes a chronological summary 

establishing an order for the pamphlets, and is far the most useful and reliable 

work extant on the subject. I have found it of great assistance. 

BOND I E

5o LIFE OF JOHN LYLY 

Elizabeth's Injunctions of 1559 had, by a decree of the High 

Commission Court of June 23, 1586, become vested exclusively in 

these very two prelates 1 ; and secret printing was necessary to evade 

it. In spite of the difficulties caused by the jealousy of the Stationers' 

Company, and the prohibition of private presses, Penry, the presiding 

genius of the movement, had contrived to secure one, together 

with some foreign type. A printer was found in Robert Waldegrave, 

whose business near Temple Bar had been ruined by the confiscation 

of his press and type for printing Udall's Puritan dialogue, Diotrephes, 

in 1588 2 . Travelling constantly about to escape the urgent search 

for it, the secret press appeared at various places where Penry had 

some connexion; such as East Molesey on the Thames, where he 

knew a Mistress Crane, and Fawsley near Northampton, where 

he had married Henry Godly's daughter and formed acquaintance 

with Sir Richard Knightley 3 . At the house of John Hales in 

Coventry, early in 1589, were secretly printed the Mineral Conclusions, 

Penry's Supplication to the Parliament and Hay any work 

for Cooper ? the last a reply to the Admonition to the people of 

England, issued by Thomas Cooper, bishop of Winchester, in 

January, 1589. Popular feeling in London and elsewhere seems 

to have been largely with the Martinists 4 . The bishops were being 

worsted by the very vehemence and scurrility of their opponents, 

when an opportune suggestion was made. It emanated from 

Dr. Bancroft, afterwards bishop of London, who on February 9, 

1589, had preached a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, asserting the 

divine right of episcopacy. Strype in t his Life of IVhitgift 5 says it 

was by Bancroft's advice that 'that course, was taken which did 

principally stop Martin's and his fellows' mouths, viz. to have them 

answered after their own vain writings'; and other testimony to 

the step is not wanting 6 . It is clear that the bishops, finding their 

1 Arber's Introductory Sketchy p. 49. 

2 Introduction to Arber's ed. of Diotrephes, and Introd. Sketch, pp. 94-5, &c. 

s Introd. Sketch, pp. 74 sqq. 

4 The spread of Puritanism in the latter years of Elizabeth needs no illustration. 

The tone of Hooker's Preface to the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polilie, in 1594, 

exhibits the fears entertained by one of the Church's best supporters for the 

stability of the institutions he upheld. 

5 Cap. xxiii. p. 516. 

6 The Protestatyon of Martin Marprelat, which appeared in September, contains 

the following on p. 24: ' Then among al the rimers and stage plaiers, which my 

LI. of the cleargy had suborned against me I remember Mar-Martin, John a Cant, 

his hobbie-horse, was to his reproche, newly put out of the Morris, take it how 

he will; with a flat discharge for euer shaking his shins about a May-pole againe 

while he liued.' (A copy of this tract, not in the British Museum, is contained in the

LYLY AND NASH ENGAGED BY THE BISHOPS 51 

reputation suffering by these unscrupulous pamphleteers, adopted 

the undignified but effective course of engaging secular wits to- meet, 

and, if possible, beat them at their own weapons. Chief among 

those whose aid was thus invoked were John Lyly and Thomas Nash. 

The former bore a name for cleverness, and had perhaps, as agent 

of the censors, already been instrumental in suppressing Puritan 

publications. The latter was a young man fresh from Cambridge, 

who had just given proof of a reflective vein, an observant eye, and 

an audacious if immature wit, in the epistle prefixed to Greene's 

Menaphon, and in those discursive remarks on books and life which 

he entitled The.Anatomie of Absurditie. The plan of campaign, 

directly concerted, as I believe, between the two ' copesmates,' 

included lampoons in verse, prose pamphlets in which scurrility was 

to bear a larger proportion than sober argument, and also caricature 

of Martin upon the stage. But their collaboration was probably 

confined to arranging a method of procedure, and deciding on 

the particular tone and style to be adopted; and did not extend, 

I believe, to actual partnership in special pamphlets, though Martin's 

Months Minde and An Almond for a Parr at in particular suggest 

some doubts on the subject. Nash's movements from place to place 

in the collection of scandal about the Martinists would prohibit close 

collaboration; nor would the nature of the pamphlets require it, 

though cross-allusions between the earliest show that the two 

endeavoured to keep in line. The passages quoted below point, 

I think, to a meeting in Kent between the two confederates, or 

perhaps to a journey taken together from Dover, by Ashford, to 

Canterbury, in the first half of 1589, when they may have discussed 

the matter; and in the ' student of Cambridge,' mentioned in The 

Returne, sig. C ij, we have probably an amusing portrait of Lyly 

himself 1 . 

Bodleian.) Harvey, in a passage alluded to above, p. 44, speaks of the ecclesiastics 

as driven ' to entertain such an odd light-headed fellow [as Lyly] for their 

defence' ; and Bacon, in his temperate essay on the subject, written about 1590, 

but not piinted till 1657, expresses the 'hope that my Lords of the Clergy have 

none intelligence with this interlibelling, but do altogether disallow that their 

credit should be thus defended' (p. 150 of Arber's Introd. Sketch, where the 

essay is given in full, pp. 146-168). On p. 149, Bacon thus expresses himself: 

' But to leave all reverent and religious compassion towards evils, or indignatipn 

towards faults ; and to turn Religion into a Comedy or Satire ; to search and rip 

up wounds with a laughing countenance; to intermix Scripture and scurrility, 

sometimes in one sentence; is a thing far from "the devout reverence of a Christian, 

and scant beseeming the honest regard of a sober man.' 

1 Nash's Countercuffe, sig. A j : ' He [Pasquill] came latelie ouer-sea into Kent, 

fro thence he cut ouer into Essex at Grauesende, and hearing some tidings .of 

£ 2

52 


The earliest fruits of the campaign seem to have been the 

satirical verses printed under the titles A Whip for an Ape and 

Mar-Martin, which Arber is probably right in dating about April 

Or May. I believe Nash was responsible for the former, and perhaps 

for some of the verses included in the latter. Of dramatic attacks 

on Martin the allusions in Pappe and The Returne of Pasquill1 

Hartfordshire . . . made as much haste as hee could to S. Albanes . . . sette 

forward the Munday following to Northamptonshire ... To be briefe with your 

worshipfultie, Pasquill hath posted very dilligently ouer all the Realme, to gather 

some fruitfulJ Volume of THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS/ i.e. scandal about the 

Martinists. 

A iij: ' Pasquill is now gone ouer sea to commit it [i. e. the Lives'] to the Presse.' 

A iv: The tract is dated ' From Grauesende Barge the eight of August ' [1589]. 

Nash's Martins Months Minde, 1589, sig. E 3, recounts as successive sufferings 

of Martin, with notes in the margin as here given in parentheses, that he had 

been ' drie beaten (T. C.)' [i.e. Thomas Cooper's Admonition], ' then whipt that 

made him winse (A whip for an Ape),' then 'made a Maygame vpon the Stage 

(The Theater), and at length cleane Marde (Marre-martin).' 

Lyly's Pappe with a Hatchett, ad init. (vol. iii): ' there was a little 

wag in Cambridge, that swore by Saint Seaton he would so swinge him with 

Sillogismes, that all Martins answeres should ake ... I laught at the boye, and 

left him drawing all the lines of Martin into sillogismes, euerie conclusion beeing 

this, Ergo Martin is to bee hangd.' Cf. Countercuffe, Aj, 'He [i.e. Martin 

Marprelate] left thee [i.e. Martin Junior] his Theses without life or limme, 

I woulde wishe thee to put them in Moode and Figure for his sake.' 

Poppe, ad fin. (vol. iii): ' Pasquil is comming out with the Hues of the Saints. 

Beware my Comment, tis odds the margent shall bee as full as the text.' 

Nash's The Returne of Pasquill, sig. C ij, professes to have gathered some 

instances of Martin's ' Strang notes' on the Gospels 'in an assemblie of the brotherhood 

at Ashford in Kent. I went thither with a student of Cambridge to 

a sollemne exercise, and comming in the habite of Schollers we pressed somewhat 

boldly into their companie to dine with them.' After dinner a chapter of the 

Bible was read, and every one present discoursed on it in turn, Nash complying 

very reluctantly. ' When I came to the ende of my cariere, my companion was 

requested to pricke it for company with his freendes. I needed no Minstrill to 

make me merrie, my hart tickled of it selfe, when it came to his turn, because 

I knew him to be a Gentleman well studied in Philosophic, but he had not yet 

medled with Diuinitie. He chose the thirteenth verse of the Chapter to discourse 

vpon. Where the Apostle saith, Euery mans worke shall be tryed by fire. 

But to see how brauely hee trotted ouer all the Meteors bredde in the highest 

Region of the ayre [a reminiscence perhaps of Euphues and Atheos, p. 293], to 

see how louingly hee made the sence of the Apostle, and Ouids fiction of Phaetons 

firing of the world to kisse before they parted, and then howe souldierlike hee 

made an ende of his manage with a double rest, was sport enough for vs to 

beguile the way, as we trauailed backe againe from thence to Canterburie.' Is 

Nash thinking of the same occasion when he says, in Countercuffe, Aiij, ' Downe 

with learning and Vniuersities, I can bring you a Free-mason out of Kent, that 

gaue ouer his occupation twentie yeeres agoe. He wil make a good Deacon for 

your purpose, I haue taken some tryall of his gifts, hee preacheth very pretily 

Ouer a Ioynt-stoole.' 

1 Pappe, ad med. (vol. iii) : ' Would those Comedies might be allowed to be 

plaied that are pend, and then I am sure he would be decyphered, and so perhaps 

discouraged. • 

He shall not bee brought in as whilom he was, and yet verie well, with a cocks 

combe, an apes face [cf. Nash's Almond, p. 22, ' as he was attired like an Ape 

on y e stage'], a wolfs bellie, cats clawes, &c, but in a cap'de cloake, and all the

ANTI-MARTINIST PLAYS 53 

enable us to distinguish at least two, both of which, after finding 

their way on to the stage, were suppressed by the Revels Office, and, 

being probably never printed, have disappeared. Apparently the 

first piece utilized the fact that Martin was a common name for 

a monkey (as A Whip for an Ape had already done) to represent 

Martin as an ape attempting to outrage the lady Divinity, in whom 

was personified, Moral-wise, the hierarchy. Nash's marginal note in 

Marti 's Months Minde (sig. E 3 verso) says it was given at 

'the Theater' in Shoreditch; and, if we cannot press his 'Maygame' 

for the month of its appearance, we may at least surmise that it had 

not been suppressed by July 22, the date of the epilogue to Theses 

Martinianae or Martin Iunior, which testifies to its popularity l . 

Pappe (just quoted p. 52 n. 1) is evidence that it had been suppressed 

before the middle or fourth week of September, which must be roughly 

the date of that pamphlet; as also that other plays, reproducing Martin 

realistically in Puritan attire, were written, but could not obtain the 

Master of the Revels' licence. From the correspondence 2 , however, 

between Burleigh, the Lord Mayor, the Archbishop, and Tylney in 

November, the summoning of the Lord Admiral's and the Lord 

Strange's men before the Lord Mayor, the imprisonment of two of 

the latter, and the appointment of two special commissioners to 

assist Tylney in a thorough censorship of existing plays, it seems 

best apparell he ware the highest day in the yeare ... on some rainie weeke-daie, 

when the brothers and sisters had appointed a match for particular praiers. . . . 

A stage plaier, though he bee but a cobler by occupation, yet his chance may 

bee to play the Kings part. Martin, of what calling so euer he be, can play 

nothing but the knaues part. . . . 

Would it not bee a fine Tragedie, when Mardocheus shall play a Bishoppe in 

a Play, and Martin Hamman, and that he that seekes to pull downe those that 

are set in authoritie aboue,him, should be hoysted vpon a tree aboue all other.' 

Note in margin, ' If it be shewed at Panics, it will cost you foure pence: at the 

Theater two pence: at Sainct Thomas a Watrings nothing.' 

Reiurne of Pasquill, sig. C iij: ' Methought Vetus Comoedia began to pricke 

him at London in the right vaine, when shee brought forth Diuinitie wyth 

a scratcht face, holding of her hart as if she were sicke, because Martin would 

have forced her; but myssing of his purpose, he left the print of his nayles uppon 

her cheekes, and poysoned her with a vomit, which he ministred ynto her to make 

her cast vppe her dignities and promotions'; and on sig. D iij, 'I haue a tale* 

to tell in her eare [Vetus Comoedia's] of the slye practice that was vsed in 

restraining of her.' 

1 Sig. D ij: ' There bee that affirme the rimers and stage-players to haue 

cleane putte you out of countenaunce ... the stage-players, poore rogues, are not 

so much to be blamed, if being stage-players, that is plaine rogues (saue onely 

for their liueries) they in the action of dealing against Maister Martin, haue 

gotten them many thousande eie witnesses, of their witlelesse and pittifull 

conceites.' 

2 Preserved in the Lansdownt MS. No. 60, and printed by Collier, Hist. Dram. 

Poet. i. 271-6.


probable that one at least of these other plays did find its way on to 

the stage in October or early November, and occasioned these 

special measures 1 . Lyly may have been concerned both in the 

earlier and the later attack, as part or sole author 2 ; and, but for 

some such labours, the prose tracts of Nash and himself would 

doubtless have appeared earlier. 

Those tracts were preceded in July by Theses Martinianae collected 

by Martin Junior and The iust censure and reproofe of Martin 

Junior . . . by his elder brother Martin Senior, wherein two supposed 

sons of Marprelate champion the paternal cause, both tracts proceeding 

from Wolston Priory on the Avon, six miles west of Rugby 3 . 

At length, in August, the. Martinist press was captured at Newton 

1 Possibly Nash is actually describing it in the following passage from The 

Keturne of Pasquill, sig. B iij verso— 

'Howe whorishlie Scriptures are alleaged by them, I will discouer (by Gods 

helpe) in another new worke which I haue in hand, and intituled it, 7'he Maygame 

of Martinisme. Verie defflie set out, with Pompes, Pagents, Motions, 

Maskes, Scutchions, Emblems, Impreases, strange trickes, and deuises, betweene 

the Ape and the Owle, the like was nener yet seene in Paris-garden. Penry the 

welchman is the foregallant of the Morrice, with the treble belles, shot through 

the wit with a Woodcock's bill, I woulde not for the fayrest horne-beast in all 

his Countrey, that the Chinch of England were a cup of Metheglin, and came 

in his way when he is ouer-heated, euery Bishopncke woulde prooue but a draught, 

when the Mazer is at his nose. Martin himselfe is the Mayd-marian, trimlie 

drest vppe in a cast Gowne, and a Kercher of Dame Lawsons, his face handsomelie 

muffled with a Diaper-napkin to couer his beard, and a great Nosegay in his 

hande, of the principalest flowers I could gather out of all hys works. Wiggenton 

daunces round about him in a Cotten-coate, to court him with a Leatherne 

pudding, and a woodden Ladle. Paget marshalleth the way, with a couple of 

great clubbes, one in his foote, another in his head, & he cryes to the people 

with a loude voice, Beware of the Man whom God hath markt. I can not yet 

find any so fitte to come lagging behind, with a budget on his necke to gather 

the deuotion of the lookers on, as the stocke-keeper of the Bridewel-house of 

Canterburie; he must carrie the purse, to defray their charges, and then hee may 

be sure to serue himselfe.' 

2 Harvey's language seems to show that he had witnessed, or heard of, the 

earlier Marprelate play, and is angry at its success, though he cannot definitely 

assign the authorship. ' I am threatened with a Bable, and Martin menaced with 

a Comedy; a fit motion for a jester, and a player to try what may be done by 

employment of his faculty. Babies and Comedies are parlous fellows to decypher 

and discourage men, (that is the point), with their witty flouts and learned jerks, 

enough to lash any man out of countenance. Nay, if you shake the painted 

scabbard at me, I have done: and all you, that tender the preseivation of your 

good names, were best to please Pap-hatchet, and fee Euphues betimes, for fear 

lest he be moved, or some one of his apes hired, to make a play of you [cf. the 

opening of Bk. iii: ' Nash the ape of Greene, Greene the ape of Euphues, Euphues 

the ape of Envy, the three famous mammets of the press, and my three notorious 

feudists, draw all in a yoke'] ; and then is your credit quite undone for ever and 

ever. Such is the public reputation of their plays. He must needs be discouraged, 

whom they decypher. Better anger an hundred other than two such, 

that have the stage at commandment, and can furnish out vices and devils at 

their pleasure' (Advt. to Papp-Hate hett in Archaica, ii. 137, or Works, ii. 213), 

3 Introd. Sketch, pp. 79, 133.

ORDER OF THE PAMPHLETS 55 

Lane, near Manchester, by agents of the Earl of Derby, acting 

under the authority of the Privy Council. The tract whose printing 

was thus arrested was called Hay any more work for Cooper ? and the 

type was the same as that used in the two preceding pamphlets. 

A special proclamation of the Queen ' against certaine seditious and 

Schismatical Bookes and Libels' had been issued on February 13, 

1589, just after the appearance of the Epitome; and the letters 

between Burleigh and Whitgift 1 on the subject leave no doubt as 

to the Lord Treasurer's attitude. Whatever his sympathy with 

Puritan feeling, it was controlled by loyalty and statesmanlike 

caution; and he could not but perceive that the attitude of the 

Martinists was quite untempered by respect for the authority of the 

Queen, as head either of the church or the realm. Penry, however, had 

anticipated the capture by previously securing a second press; and 

from Job Throckmorton's house of Haseley in Warwickshire, there 

issued in September, Martin Marprelate's Protestatyon : but before 

this Nash had commenced retaliation in kind, and A Countercuffe, 

dated August 8, and Martin's Months Minde, professing to recount 

Marprelate's funeral, had appeared; written respectively under the 

assumed characters of Pasquil (Pasquin) and Marforio, popular 

names of the two statues no doubt seen by Nash in Rome, to which 

formerly ecclesiastical bulls, and at this time revolutionary libels and 

placards, used to be affixed 2 . Neither tract alludes to the capture 

of the press, to the suppression of the anti-Martinist play, or to the 

Protestatyon—events they probably precede. Lyly's Pappe with a 

Hatchett, however, which appeared probably near the close of 

September, devotes some pages at the end to answering the latter, 

which he had just received; and it is further dealt with in Nash's 

Returne of Pasquill, ' dated 20 Octobris V The fourth of the Pasquil 

pamphlets, The first Parte ofPasquiTs Apologie, is dated 'the 2 of July, 

Anno 1590 '; and had been preceded earlier in the year by An Almond 

for a Parrat, in which Nash took the new pseudonym of Cuthbert 

Curryknave. Of all these tracts Pappe is the only one that can be 

assigned to Lyly 4 . He can hardly have been proud of the achievement. 

1 Introd. Sketch, pp. 107-113. Whitgift's letter announcing the seizure of the 

press is dated Aug. 24, 1589. 

2 See the introduction to Pasquin et Marforio par Mary Lafon, Paris, 1861. 

8 Sig. D iij. 

* I have felt some doubt about Martiris Months Minde on account of the style 

of the long Epistle to the Reader (sigs. B, C, D), its antithesis and alliteration, 

the musical terms (B recto), the natural history (C 4 verso), the batch of classical 

allusions (D 2 recto), and the resenting of the abuse of plays in Theses Mart.


Probably he disdained, while he undertook, the task: that he spent 

no trouble on it is obvious, even if it were not implied in the 

signature, 'yours at an hour's warning ,' and the Almond's mention 

of it as an 'extemporall endeuourV Possessing more point than is 

at first apparent, it is yet on the whole adequately described by 

Harvey as ' alehouse and tinkerly stuffe ... so oddly huddled and 

(D 3 recto); and it would have been natural for Marforio, Pasquin's friend, to 

be represented by Lyly: but it was not necessary, and closer consideration convinces 

me that the likeness of style in some respects is not strong enough to 

outweigh the likeness to Nash in the length of the sentences, strewn with parentheses 

; and on B 4 I find some special echoes of Nash's words in the Counter cuffe 

and the Almond. 

The Almond has so often been attributed to Lyly that I feel constrained to state 

here my reasons for assigning it to Nash. The doubt about all these pamphlets is due 

partly to the fact that Nash, like every other writer of the time, was infected with 

euphuism, partly no doubt to the agreement between the two men to adopt a swashbuckling 

style against Martin. But though Pappe and The Almond are alike in 

scurrility, there is a more serious attempt at argument in the latter, which keeps much 

closer to the facts and personages of the controversy; and the special peculiarities of 

Nash make themselves strongly felt, just as Lyly's crop up in Pappe for all he can do 

to repress them. In Nash's earlier prose there is a note of oddity and freakishness, 

a crowded character, a lavish and rambling agglomeration of suggestion and 

idea, not always striking or specially pertinent, which give us the impression of 

a rich soil badly cultivated, or of an unpruned vine producing great quantities of 

rather poor fruit and innumerable little curling tendrils. These are quite the 

marks of the Almond, which is full of long ill-regulated sentences, and instances 

of Nash's trick of using a substantive as an epithet. Compare p. 9 of Petheram's 

Reprint, where, after an interminable sentence, he says: ' Beare with me good 

Maister Pistle-monger, if in comparing thy knauery, my full points seeme as 

tedious to thy puritane perusers, as the Northren mans mile, and a waybitte to 

the weary passenger, for I tell thee troth, till I see what market commission 

thou hast to assiste any man's sentences, I will neuer subscribe to thy peri ode 

prescisme.' See also the long-winded paragraphs, pp. 29, 41. The euphuism is 

that of one who had read and retained some influence of Euphues, rather than 

that of the author of Euphues himself. There is much alliteration, but not transverse, 

and scarce any balance of clauses or words. And when did Lyly utter 

such coin as •vnuenidall sins' (p. 11) or *confectionate' as a verb (ib.), with 

which we may compare the following in Nash's Christes Teares, 1593,' assertionate' 

p. 31, ' Saboth-ceased' p. 61,' mingle-coloured' p. 62,' fundamentiue' p. 58,' propendant' 

p. 65, ' constraintment' p. 71, 'inward emperishing Famine should too 

vntimely inage thee' p. 68. In such a phrase as ' the painted poison of snout-holy 

devotion' {Almond, p. 11) we have the very Nash. ' Burlibond ' (p. 12) is found 

again in Pierce Penilesse, and Murray quotes no other instance except 2 Henry 

VI (iv. x. 60): 'hodie peeles' p. 13 is 'hoddy peeke' in The Anatomie of 

Absurditie. The slanderous description of Penry is like the trussing of Gabriel 

Harvey in Haue with you; and the grurnble in the dedication to Will Kempe 

against the custom of dedicating to some great nobleman, reminds us of words 

in Nash's dedication of Jack Wilton to Southampton: ' Ingenious honorable Lord, 

I know not what blinde custome methodicall antiquity hath thruste upon us, to 

dedicate such books as we publish to one great man or other' &c. Moreover 

the mention, in the Almond's Introduction, of his journey from Venice, and the 

frequent allusions to Suffolk and the Eastern counties generally, are appropriate 

to Nash, who had travelled in Italy and was born at Lowestoft; but not, so far 

as we know, to Lyly. 

1 Petheram's Reprint, p. 12.

THE HARVEYS' SHARE 57 

bungled together, in so madbrain a sort . . . nothing worthy 

a scholar or a civil gentleman V That the authenticity of such an 

emanation from the pen that wrote Euphues should have been 

questioned, is not surprising; but the authorship is not really disputable, 

and might be urged in support of the notion that the poet 

of Cupid and my Campaspe also wrote A Whip for an Ape, a bare 

possibility which has induced me to include that lampoon in this 

edition as 'doubtful 2 .' 

The brief passage in Pappef quoted above, p. 30 note 2, was the 

signal for the entry into the quarrel of the brothers Harvey. Gabriel, 

long jealous of Lyly's repute, and also aggrieved by his estrangement, 

answers his challenge promptly in the Advertisement to Papp- 

Hatchett, to which reference has been so often made. It is dated 

'At Trinitie hall: this fift of Nouember: 1589,'but Harvey seems 

to have cherished some hope of reconciliation with his old friend, 

for he reserved it until the appearance of Pierce's Supererogation in 

1593, of which it forms the second book. The greater portion even 

of that book is devoted to serious argument on the theological 

question. Harvey has no special leanings; he disclaims at any rate 

all sympathy with the Martinists, and rails against Brown, Barrow, 

Kett and others in good set terms. The attitude affected is rather 

that of umpire in the quarrel, which is approached from the superior 

standpoint of academical wisdom. Apparently he engaged his 

brother, the clergyman, Richard, in the same cause; for early in 

1590 appeared the latter's Plaine Percevall, the Peace-Maker of 

England, 'swetely indevoring ... to botch up a Reconciliation 

between Mar-ton and Mar tother.' It was dedicated ' To the new 

upstart Martin ... to all Whip Iohns and Whip lacks; not forgetting 

the Caualiero Pasquill or the Cooke Ruffian that drest a dish 

for Martin's diet,' i.e. Lyly in Pappe\ and it was followed by a second 

tract from the same pen, entitled The Lamb of God (dated i59o\ 

prefixed to which was an ' Epistle to the Reader/ written perhaps by 

Gabriel, perhaps by the brothers in collaboration, vilifying by name 

Lyly, Nash, and the 'make plaies and make bates' of London 

generally. The passage is not to be found in any extant copy of 

The Jjimb of God, but its existence is sufficiently established by 

Nash's statements about it in Pierce Penilesse, 1592, and Strange 

1 Advt. to Papp-Hatckett in Brydges' Archaica, ii. 144. 

* In my introductory remarks thereto (vol. iii) I have maintained it to be Nash's 

work.


Newes,15931. This attack on the London playwrights roused the 

ire of Robert Greene, with whom Nash acknowledges some slight 

acquaintance 2 , and he included in his Quip for an vpstart Courtier: 

or a quaint dispute between Veluet-breeches and Cloth-breeches (1592), 

a passage reflecting offensively upon the Harvey family—on the 

father for rope-making, on Gabriel for having been imprisoned in 

the Fleet, on Richard for freedom with the wives of his parishioners 

at Saffron Walden, and on John, who was a physician at Lynn, in 

some manner unknown. Before his death, on September 3, 1592, 

Greene, persuaded, according to Nash, by his own doctor, had 

cancelled the passage 3 ; which amounted, says Nash, to no more 

1 Pierce Penilesse (Nasn's Works, ed. Grosart, vol. ii. p. 69): * The Lambe of 

God make thee [i. e. Richard Harvey] a wiser Bell-weather then thou art . . . and 

so I leaue thee til a better opportunity, to be tormented world without end, of 

our Poets and Writers about London, whome thou hast called piperly Make-plaies 

and Make bates: not doubting but he also whom thou tearmest the vayn Paphatchet, 

wil have a Hurt at thee one day.' 

Strange Newes (Works, ii. 196): 'Somewhat I am priuie to the cause of 

Greenes inueighing against the three brothers. Thy [i.e. Gabriel's]'hot-spirited 

brother Richard (a notable ruffian with his pen) hauing first tooke vpon him in 

his blundring Persiual, to play the Iacke of both sides twixt Martin and vs, and 

snarld priuily at Pap-hatchet, Pasquill, & others, that opposde themseluts against 

the open slaunder of that mightie platformer of Atheisme, presently after dnbbed 

forth another fooles bolt, a booke I shoulde say, which he christened The Lambe 

of God. . . . Not mee alone did hee reuile and dare to the combat, but glickt at 

Pap-hatchet once more, and mistermed all our other Poets and wi iters about 

London, piperly make-plaies and make-bates. 

Hence Greene, beeing chiefe agent for the companie (for hoe writ more than 

foure other, how well I will not say : but Sat citb, si sat bene) tooke occasion to 

canuaze him a little in his Cloth-breeches and Veluet-breeches, and because by 

some probable collections hee gest the elder brothers hand was in it, he coupled 

them both in one yoake, and, to fulfill the prouerbe Trio, sunt omnia, thiust in 

the third brother, who made a perfect parriall of Pamphleteers. 

About some seauen or eight lines it was which hath pluckt on an invectiuc of 

so many leaues,' i.e. Harvey's Four Letters and certaine Sonnets, 1592, which 

Nash is here answering. 

2 Strange Newes (Works, ii. 243): ' Neither was I Greenes companion any 

more than for a carowse or two'; p. 283 ' A thousande there bee that haue 

more reason to speake in his behalfe than I, who, since I first knew him about 

town, haue beene two yeares together and not scene him.' When Nash, in the 

passage quoted in the preceding note, speaks of Greene as ' chiefe agent for the 

companie,' he dues not, I think, mean the group of Anti-Martinists employed by 

the bishops, but simply the ' Poets and writers about London/ whom Richard 

Harvey had in general abused. 

3 In Strange Newes (Works, ii. 209) Nash denies that the cancelling was due to 

fear of the Harveys: 'Marry this I must say, there was a learned Doctour of 

Phisicke (to whom Greene in his sicknesse sent for counsaile) that hauing read 

ouer the booke of Veiuetbreeches and Clothbreeches, and laughed meirilie at the 

three brothers legend, wild Greene in any case either to mittigate it, or leaue it 

out: Not for any extTaordinarie account hee made of the fraternitie of fooles, but 

for one of them was proceeded in the same facultie of phisicke hee profest, and 

willinglie hee would haue none of that excellent calling ill spoken off. This was 

the cause of the altring of it, the feare of his Phisitions displeasure, and not ariie 

feare else,'

GREENE, HARVEY, AND NASH 

than ' seauen or eight lines,' and does not appear in extant copies 

of the Qvip. But Harvey was not to be baulked of his revenge. 

Before the end of the year appeared the Four Letters and certaine 

Sonnets, whose rancour against the dead man, and reproduction of 

details wormed out of his landlady while his body was lying scarce 

yet cold upstairs, have done more injury to his own reputation than 

they could possibly inflict on the defenceless object of his attack. 

However just his indignation, the method taken to gratify it and the 

previous death of his opponent, are circumstances not to be ignored. 

Harvey had made some reflections on Nash's Pierce Penilesse of the 

same year; but it was honest disgust more than any personal feeling 

that prompted Nash to take up the cudgels for the dead poet in 

Strange Newes, which must have appeared in March or April, 1593, 

and bore ' The foure Letters Confuted' as a running-title. Harvey 

retaliated in Pierce's Supererogation; which is dated at the end, 

i 27 Aprill 1593 1,' and included as its second book the Advertisement 

to Papp-Hatchet'/, penned in October or November, 1589; and also 

A New Letter' of Notable Contents, dated September 16, 1593. 

Nash allowed three years to elapse before he replied in Haue with 

you to Saffron Waldron, 1596; Harvey's rejoinder, The Trimming of 

Thomas Nash (1597), being the last word in this pamphlet war, whose 

chief interest for us lies, perhaps, in the scattered hints it gives of Lyly. 

Nash seems rather anxious to insist on the partnership; though, in 

fact, after Pappe we have nothing more from Lyly, who probably 

regarded the whole affair with considerable indifference. Just as in 

Pierce Penilesse 2 , Nash had threatened Richard Harvey with an attack 

from Lyly, so in Strange Newes he exhorts Gabriel to ' Marke him 

well: hee is but a little fellow, but hee hath one of the best wits in 

England. Should he take thee in hand againe (as he flieth from 

such inferiour concertation) I prophecie that there woulde more 

gentle Readers die of a merry mortality, ingendred by the eternall 

iests he would maule thee with, than there haue done of this last 

infection. I my self, that inioy but a mite of wit in comparison of 

his talet,' &c. From the later passages in Haue with you (1596), 

quoted below 3 , it would seem that Lyly did actually contribute 

1 A date so soon after the appearance of Strange Newes as to lend colour to 

Nash's suggestion in Haue with you, &c. {Works, iii. p. 184), that it was some 

old Cambridge oratorical exercise vamped up to suit the occasion. 

a Works, vol. ii. p. 69, quoted above, p. 58, beginning of note 1. 

3 Works, vol. iii. p. 76: 'As for him whom (so artlesse and against the haire 

of anie similitude or coherence) he calls the arte of Jigges [Harvey was of course 

alluding to Lyly's tale-bearing about himself to Lord Oxford in 1580], he shall


something further; but either it never saw the light, or, if it did, is 

lost. Mr. G. F. Baker suggests that Lyllies light, entered on the 

Stationer' Register, June 30, 1596 1, may have been the pamphlet in 

question. The date at least is in accord with Nash's statement. 

Long before this the heat of the Martinist attack had died out; 

quenched partly, as Nash affirms, by their vigorous replies, partly by 

the more summary refutation of the prison and the gibbet. The 

strong Puritan feeling—fraught ultimately with such momentous and 

tragic issue—underlying the paper war which Nash and Lyly 

approached so light-heartedly, was smothered for the time; and 

having indicated the transference of the quarrel from the sphere of 

religious polemics to that of private personalities, we may return to 

our author. 

We have just gleaned from Nash that he was small of stature 

and a smoker. Two other little points may be noticed : one that 

Nash acknowledges an early admiration of Euphttes 2 , while he 

repudiates the charge of imitating its style; the other that Lyly 

first taught him to admire the sermons of the great preacher, 

Dr. Lancelot Andrewes 8 , afterwards bishop of Ely and other sees, 

not need long to call for his figs, for hee will bee choakt soone inough with 

them ; they hauing lyne ripe by him readie gathered (wanting nothing but pressing) 

anie time this twelue month. For my own proper person,' &c. 

Ibid. p. 204 : ' For Master Lillie (who is halues with me in this indignitie that is 

offred) I will not take the tale out of his mouth, for he is better able to defend 

himselfe than I am able to say he is able to defend himselfe, and in so much time 

as hee spendes in taking Tobacco one weeke, he can compile that which would 

make Gabriell repent himselfe all his life after. With a blacke sant he meanes 

shortly to bee at his chamber window for calling him the Fiddlesticke of Oxford. 

In that he [Harvey] twatleth, it had bin better to haue confuted Martin by Reucrend 

Cooper than such leuitie; tell mee why was hee [Martin] not then confuted by 

Reuerend Cooper, or made to hold his peace, till Master Lillie, and some others, 

with their pens drew vpon him ? ' 

Ibid. p. 207: ' The Paradoxe of the Asse, M. Lilly hath wrought vppon; as also 

to him 1 turne ouer the Doctors Apothecarie tearmes he hath vsed throughout, 

& more especially in his last Epistle of notable Contents.' 

1 Arber's Transcript, vol. iii. p. 65. The astrologer William Lilly, whom the 

title may perhaps suggest, was not born till 1602. 

2 Strange Newes {Works, li. 267): ' the vaine which I haue ... is of my own 

begetting, and cals no man father in England but my selfe, neither Euphues, 

nor Tarlton, nor Greene. Not Tarlton nor Greene but haue beene contented to 

let my simple itidgement ouerrule them in some matters of wit Euphues I readd 

when I was a little ape in Cambridge, and I thought it was Ipse ille: it may be 

excellent good still, for ought I know, for I lookt not on it this ten yeare: but 

to imitate it I abhorre, otherwise than it imitates Plutarch, Ouid, and the choicest 

Latine Authors,' 

6 Haue with you (Works, iii. 159): 'by Doctor Androwes own desert, and 

Master Lillies immoderate commending him, by little and little I was drawne on to 

bee an auditor of his: since when, whensoener I heard him, I thought it was but 

hard and scant allowance that was giu'n him, in comparison of the incomparable 

gifts that were in him.'

JONSON'S CARICATURE OF LYLY 61 

and at this time vicar of St. Giles', Cripplegate, and prebend residentiary 

of St. Paul's, in both of which places he used constantly 

to preach. And here, perhaps, may best be mentioned the satirical 

sketch of Lyly which Ben Jonson is supposed to have intended in 

the Fastidious Brisk of his Every Man out of his Humour (1599). 

Brisk certainly corresponds to Lyly in the matters of quoting, fiddling, 

smoking, literary borrowing and pecuniary embarrassment; in his 

affectation of being a ladies' man and nothing if not a courtier; in 

his special attention to similes and wit. He even uses the phrase 

'an anatomy of wit' (iii. 1), and Fallace, the citizen's wife, who 

admires him, quotes Euphues to him (v. 7). But the chief point 

noted is his vanity in dress : he speaks of it perpetually, and wears 

a new suit at almost every entrance—a foible which, together with 

his gifts to the Court beauties, lands him ultimately in the Counter. 

With some necessary deductions for satire, the portrait may, I think, 

be allowed 1 . Here is Jonson's own summary of the character:— 

'A neat, spruce, affecting courtier, one that wears clothes well, and in 

fashion; practiseth by his glass how to salute; speaks good remnants, 

notwithstanding the base viol and tobacco; swears tersely, and with 

variety; cares not what lady's favour he belies, or great man's familiarity: 

a good property to perfume the boot of a coach. He will borrow another 

man's horse to praise, and backs him as his own. Or, for a need, on foot 

can post himself into credit with his merchant, only with the gingle of his 

spur, and the jerk of his wand.' 

Returning to Lyly's dramatic work, we saw that Midas was 

probably given at Court on January 6, 1589-90. In the same year, 

I believe, he composed and produced at St. Paul's Mother Bombie, 

his only surviving realistic comedy of modern life, to which he had 

perhaps been led by the success of his suppressed Anti-Martinist 

play of the previous year. It does not profess to have been given 

at Court; and, though written in the spirit of classical Terentian 

comedy, lacks altogether the conventional and courtly tone of Lyly's 

other plays. Nash, in 1596 2 , testifies to the popularity it once 

enjoyed; and perhaps it was withheld from the press in 1591 as newer 

1 Compare, in regard to the extravagance in dress, Fidus' (perhaps autobiographical) 

remark in Euphues, vol ii. p. 49,1. 29 : ' I endeauoured to courte it with 

a grace, (almost past grace,) laying more on my backe then my friendes could wel 

beare, hauing many times a braue cloke and a thredbare purse.' 

8 Haue with you (Works, iii. 67): 'We neede neuer wish the Playes at Powles 

vp againe, but if we were wearie with walking, and loth to goe too farre to seeke 

sport, into the Arches we might step, and heare him [Gabriel Harvey] plead; 

which would bee a merrier Comedie than euer was old Mother Bomby.'


and more likely than those then printed to win acceptance at some 

other theatre. It was printed, however, in 1594, and again in 

1598. 

The year 1591 is the most probable date for the complete 

suppression of the Paul's Boys, of which our earliest notice is the 

short address of the printer in Endimion, beginning 'Since the 

Plaies in Paules were dissolued,' and the entry of that play with 

Gallathea and Midas in the Stationers' Register, under date October 4, 

1591 1 . The cause remains obscure; but was probably a repetition 

of the offence of introducing the religious quarrel upon the 

stage, which had brought down official wrath on other theatres in 

1589. We have the evidence of Nash, just quoted, that the inhibition 

was still in force in 1596, and no sign of its removal until the printing, 

in 1600, of The Maydes Metamorphosis, as 'acted by the Children 

of Powles.' The consequences for Lyly must have been most serious, 

since the acting of the boys would probably be his chief source of 

income. The consequence for the English stage was an arrest 

of the output of a dramatist who had only now attained his best 

powers. I believe, with Malone 2 , that it is of Lyly Spenser"is 

speaking when he laments in The Teares of the Muses, published 

among his Complaints in 1591, the silence of 'our pleasant Willy.' 

The lines are put into the mouth of the Muse of Comedy, and are 

far more appropriate to Lyly, with his reputation for wit and learning 

and plays free from ribaldry, than to the yet obscure Shakespeare 

or any other dramatist of this time. 

And he, the man whom Nature selfe had made 

To mock her selfe, and Truth to imitate, 

With kindly counter under Mimick shade, 

Our pleasant Willy, ah! is dead of late: 

With whom all joy and jolly meriment 

Is also deaded, and in dolour drent. 

In stead thereof scoffing Scurrilitie, 

And scornfull Follie with contempt is crept, 

Rolling in rymes of shameles ribaudrie 

Without regard or due Decorum kept; 

Each idle wit at will presumes to make, 

And doth the Learned's taske upon him take. 

1 Arber's Transcript', vol. ii. p. 596. 

2 Boswell's Malone's Shakespeare, vol. ii. (Life) pp. 173-197. 'Willy,' as 

Malone points out, is a frequent pastoral name for a shepherd, and a shepherd is 

poetic for a poet

SUSPENSION OF PAUL'S BOYS 

But that same gentle Spirit, from whose pen 

Large streames of honnie and sweete Nectar flowe, 

Scorning the boldnes of such base-borne men, 

Which dare their follies forth so rashlie throwe, 

Doth rather choose to sit in idle Cell, 

Than so himselfe to mockerie to sell. 

If we are correct in assigning the reference of these lines to Lyly, 

they serve to show that Spenser, in spite of his old acquaintance 

with Harvey, and Harvey's continual parade of their friendship', 

was no partisan of the brothers in the paper war now waging between 

them and the ' rimers and stage-plaiers.' Perhaps they also show 

that Lyly had no personal share, or acknowledged no share, in the 

Anti-Martinist plays. 

In one case, however, the silence which Spenser laments was 

broken. Somewhere between 1591 and 1593 Lyly seems to have 

written The Woman in the Moone. It can hardly be later, because 

the Midsummer Nighfs Dream, which dates about 1594, adopts 

some suggestions from it. It can hardly be earlier, or it would have 

been performed by the Paul's Boys; but the title-page, while stating 

that it was ' presented before her Highnesse,' names no company. 

The play constitutes for Lyly another new departure, being his first 

essay in the blank verse which, since the success of Tamburlaine 

in 1587, had come into general use. While poetically his best, it 

is also certainly among his most dramatic works, and exhibits 

perhaps, in Gunophilus, the influence of Shakespeare's earliest 

clowns, Costard, the Dromios and Launce. It was entered on the 

Stationers' Register, September 22, 1595 2 , though not actually published 

until 1597. Explanation of this delay in printing has been 

sought in the supposed displeasure of the Queen at a veiled satire 

on herself in Pandora or Luna. Satirical intention in a play written 

for presentation before her is to my mind extremely doubtful 3 , and 

that she would interfere to stay the printing still more so. No 

explanation of the delay is really needed: it was an ordinary occurrence, 

of which the bibliography of Lyly's own works furnishes at 

least two other instances, in Euphues and his England, delayed for 

1 Four Letters and certaine Sonnets (Harvey's Works, i. 180): ' Signor 

Immerito (for that name will be remembred) was then, and is still my affectionate 

friend'; cf. p. 212. Nash in Strange Newes, 1593, speaks of Gabriel's ' vaineglory 

to haue Spencer known for thy friend' (works, ii. 212). 

2 Arber's Transcript, vol. iii. p. 48. 

3 The question is discussed in the essay on ' Lyly as a Playwright.' vol. ii. 

pp. 256-7.


some nine months, and the Sixe Court Comedies entered by Blount, 

January 9, 1627-8 \ but not published till 1632. And satire is quite 

inconsistent with-Lyly's still active expectations of favour, as revealed 

by his first petition to which we must now turn. 

As already shown (p. 33) a letter preserved among the State 

Papers in the Record Office, bearing date December 22, 1597, and 

speaking of his having patiently endured the proroguing of the 

Queen's promises for twelve years, enables us to date his two 

undated petitions, which speak of ten and of thirteen years' waiting 

respectively, in 1595 and 1598. Three copies of them, none in 

Lyly's autograph, are in the British Museum, and a fourth among 

Lord Leconfield's MSS. at Petworth 2 . I give them both, literatim et 

puncfuatim, from Harleian MS. 1323, fols. 249-50, which furnishes 

the best text, in spite of some errors—corrected in the notes at the 

foot of the page or by the variants reported there from the other 

MSS. The first runs as follows :— 

'A PETITIONARYE L'RE : FFROM : JOHN LILLYE To QUEENE 

ELIZABETH 8 . 

Tempcira si numeris 4 , quae nos numeramus, 

Non venit ante suam, nostra querela diem. 

Most : Gratious : and dread Soveraigne; 

I dare not pester yo r : Highnes, w th many wordes; and want witt, to 

wrapp : vpp much matter, in ffewe; This Age, Epitomyes 5 , the Pater 

Noster; thrust, into the Compasse of a penny; The world, into the 

Modell, of a Tennis Ball, All Scyences, melted, into Sentences 6 , I would, 

I were soe compendyous, as to expresse my hopes, my ffortunes, my 

1 Stat. Reg., Arber's Transcript, iv. p. 192. 

. a The three are Harl. MS. 1877, fol. 71 (from which they have hitherto been 

given); Harl. MS. 1523, fols. 249,'250; and Hargrave MS. 225, p. 36. The 

Petworth MS. I have not been able to see; but it appears in the Sixth Report of 

the Historical MSS. Commission (p. 306) as the sixty-first in that collection, 

containing copies of letters temp. Henry VIII, Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I, 

among which are enumerated :— 

7. John Lille to the Queen Elizabeth for entertainment in the revels; 

8. The same to the same, petitioning for a Protection Royal; 

a description which sufficiently identifies them with the petitions here given. 

3 So, too, Harg. MS. Harl. MS. 1877 nas ' A peticSn of John Lilly to the 

Queenes Matl e; 

4 So, too, Harg. MS. Harl. MS. 1877 gives it rightly 'numeres'. ' Bene' and 

'amantes ' are of course omitted in all three. Ovid, Her. ii. 7, 8: 

Tempora si numeres, bene quae numeramus amantes, 

Non venit ante suam nostra querela diem.' 

5 'Epitome's.' Harl. MS. 1877. 

• 'All science malted into sentence,' Harl. MS. 1877.

HIS FIRST PETITION, 1595 -.65 

overtbwartes into 1 sillables, as Marchantes, doe ; Riches ; into a ffewe 2 

Ciphers, Butt, I ffeare to Comitt the Erro r : I . discomend tedyousnes, 

lyke one; that Roveinge s ; to searche out, whatt tyme was, spent all his, 

and knewe it not; 

' I was entertayned, yo r : Ma tIes : servant; by yo r : owne gratious ffavo r : 

stranghthened w th Condicons, that, I should ayme all my Courses, Att 

the Revells ; (I dare not saye, w th a promise, butt a hopeffull Item, of 4 

the Reversion) ffor the w ch ; theis Tenn yeares, I haue Attended, w th an 

vnwearyed patience, and 5 ,1 knowe not; whatt Crabb ; tooke mee ffor an 

Oyster, that, in the Middest of the Svnnshine of yo r : gratious 6 aspect; 

hath thrust a stone ; Betwene the shelles, to eate mee alyve ; that onely 

lyve on dead hopes; 

' yf, yo r : sacred Ma tie : thincke mee vnworthie, and that after Tenn 

yeares tempest, must 7 att the Co rte : suffer shippwracke of my tymes, my 

hopes, and my Wittes 8, vouchesaffe in 9 yo r : never erringe Judgm: some 

Plancke, or Rafter; to waffe mee ; into a Countrye, where, in 10 , my, sadd 

and setled devotion ; I maye; in every Corner ; of a Tha'tch't Cottage ; 

wryte Prayers ; instead of Playes ; Prayers ; ffor, yo r : longe, and prosperous 

lyfe, and a Repentance, that I haue played the foole, soe longe, 

and yett ly ve 11 . 

' Quod petimus poena; nee enim miser esse recuso 12 

sed precor vt possem, mitiusesse miser: 

Jo : LILLYE 

' Non ero, qui miser sum, te miserante miser 13 

Jo : LILLYE :' 

The petition was probably suggested by the completion of ten 

years from the time of his first engagement. It can hardly be due 

immediately to the disfavour to which he alludes in his simile of 

the crab and the oyster; for, if under a cloud, he would not venture 

1 So, too, Harg. MS.; Harl. MS. 1877 'in two..' 

2 ' in fewe,' Harl. MS. 1877. 

* 'roweing,' Harg. MS. ; Harl. MS, 1877 'vowed. 1 ' To rove' is found in 

the sense of guess, aim at, investigate, 

4 ' to,' Harl. MS. 1877. 

6 ' yo r sunshine of your most gratious,' Harl. MS. 1877, 

7 'I must,' Harl. MS. 1877. 

8 ' my tyme, my wittes, my hopes,' Harl. MS. 1877. 

5 ' And nowe. Harl. MS. 1877. 

9 

'me,' Harg. MS. 

10 ll 

• wherein,' Harg. MS.; Harl. MS. 1877. 

' like.* Harl MS. 1877. 

12 

Harl. MS. 1877 supplies the ' est' after ' poena,' but puts ' etiam' for '. enim.' 

Harg. MS. has 'est' and 'enim.' All three read 'possem.' The lines are from 

Ovid's Tristia, v. 2. 77, 78 : 

'Quod petimus, poena est: neque enim miser esse recuso; 

Sed precor, ut possim tutius esse miser.' 

13 

This last line added by Lyly is, with the signatures before and after, omitted 

altogether in Harl. MS. 1877. Harg. MS. has the two signatures, but gives the 

added line as' non ego qui nunc sum te miserante miser,' which must be what Lyly 

wrote. 

BOND 1 

F

66. LIFE OF JOHN LYLY 

to beg. That allusion may be referable to the inhibition of the 

Paul's Boys in 1591, which had cut off a chief source of his income. 

His election to Parliament for Aylesbury in 1592-3 would not lessen 

his expenses, and his next petition is evidence that he had children 

and debts. It is also evidence of definite fault found with him 

on the subject of Tentes and Toyles, which may have been the 

instance of royal displeasure here spoken of. In the ' thatched 

cottage, 7 for which, with somewhat forced pathos, he here begs, he 

perhaps alludes to his lack of official quarters at St. John's Priory . 

But his appeal seems to have passed unregarded. 

In 1595 or 1596 he wrote the brochure against Harvey mentioned 

by Nash ; for the disappearance of which, with the example of Pappe 

before us, we can hardly repress a sense of thankfulness, though it 

might have added something to our knowledge of the writer. On 

Sept. 1o; 1596 was baptized at the church of St. Bartholomew the 

Less in Smithfield, the first of his children of whom we have any 

record, by his father's name 2 . Collier, who first discovered these 

important entries in the St. Bartholomew's Register, asserts that 

'this son died and was buried 22nd Aug., 1597, not at St. Bartholomew's, 

but at St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate'; but my careful 

examination of the St. Botolph's Register fails to discover any entry 

of the kind 3 . The christening, however, of another son by the 

same name, John, on July 3, 1600, seems to imply the death of the 

first. I feel the less hesitation in identifying these entries with our 

author, firstly because, with one possible exception to be noted 

1 See above, pp. 42 and 38, note 5. 

a For convenience of reference I give here, together, all the entries in the 

St. Bartholomew's Register, which relate to our author, including two (of 1604 

and 1604) which escaped Collier's notice : 

' 1596 The x th of September John the sonne of John Lillye gent was chiened.' 

' 1600 The third of July John the sonne of John Lillye gen was baptised/ 

' 1603 The xxj th of May ffrancis the doughter of John Lillye gen was baptised.' 

' 16o4[-5] The xvij Lh of Januarie Thomas the sonne of John Lyllye gen was 

baptised.' 

' 1605 The xiiij th of May Elizabeth the doughter of John Lilly gen was buried/ 

' 1606 The 30 th of Novemb r was buried John Lyllie gent:' 

No entry of his marriage occurs among those between 1574 and 1606 inclusive, 

nor any further entry that concerns him among the christenings or burials between 

1584-1607. The Emanuell Lillye, entries about two of whose children are found 

under the years 1594 and 1595, was probably the person of that name who died 

in the Counter, son of Richard Lylly, the Gloucestershire yeoman, and no relation 

of our author. Nor can I trace any certain connexion between him and th' 

* Thomas Lillye gent,' whose son is buried here, Sept. 25, 1607. 

s See Collier's Bibliographical Catalogue, i. 503-6. There are other chu ches 

in the City dedicated to St. Botolph, but the faint prospect of discovering some 

meie formal entry of uncertain identity has not been sufficient to tempt me to 

further exploration.

LINES IN LOK'S ECCLESIASTES 67 

presently (p. 74), my researches at Somerset House, in the Record 

Office, and among the MSS. in the British Museum, reveal no other 

John Lyly (or Lilly, &c.) in London, to whom the description 'gent/ 

would be applicable; and secondly, because these entries of burials 

and christenings imply residence in the Hospital, to which St. Bartholomew 

the Less, standing within its precinct, served, and serves 

still, as a parish church 1 , and the near neighbourhood of which 

to the Revels Office on the north, and to St. Paul's on the south-east, 

would make it a natural place for Lyly to rent chambers or a house. 

In 1597 Henry Lok, a bad poet but a man apparently of strong 

religious feeling, published his verse-paraphrase of Ecclesiastes, with 

a dedicatory epistle to the Queen. Himself a persistent petitioner 

to Sir Robert Cecil 2 , Burleigh's second surviving son, who had, 

in 1596, been appointed Secretary of State, he seems to have made 

acquaintance with Lyly, with whom he was closely contemporary : 

and, whether by Lok's permission or request, Lyly seized the opportunity 

to include among the commendatory verse some bad Latin 

lines flattering the Queen, whose eye they would be likely to meet, 

and contrived, in a concluding couplet addressed to Lok, to suggest 

the neglect under which both authors were suffering. The lines, 

which are given the second place among the commendatory verse, 

run as follows :— 

' Ad Serenissimam Reginam Elizabetham. 

Regia Virgineæ soboles dicata parenti, 

Virgo animo, patriae mater, Regina quid 3 optas ? 

Chara domi, metuenda foris, Regina quid optas ? 

Pulchra, pia es, princeps, foelix, Regina quid optas? 

Ccelum est ? Certo at ser6 sit Regina quod optas. 

JOH. LILY. 

Ad Lockum ciusdem. 

Ingenio & genio locuples, die Locke quid addam? 

Addo, quod ingenium quondam preciosius auroV 

On Sept. 22, 1597 he was returned as member for Appleby, in 

1 Stow (Survey, ed. Strype, Bk. iii. ch. 12, pp. 331 sqq.), writing in 1598 and 

dealing with the old Hospital and its church standing, as now,' on the south side' 

of West Smithfield, and speaking of its suppression under Henry VIII, says: ' The 

church remaineth a parish-church to the tenants dwelling in the precinct of the 

hospital.' 

3 See Cal. of State Papers, Domestic, 1598-1603 (July 1598), and Diet. Nat. 

Biog, art. ' Lok or Locke, Henry, 1553 ?-16o8 ?' 

3 The word is repeated by a misprint in the original edition. 

* ingenium 1 &c.] from Ovid, Amor. iii. 8. 3. Lyly quotes it Mother Bombie, iii. a. 

F 2


Westmoreland, though the Parliament was not actually summoned 

till Oct. 24. At the close of the year a letter written by him to Sir 

Robert Cecil 1 is evidence that his hopes of the Revels Office had 

been endangered by a half-promise, if not a formal grant, of the 

reversion to Sir George Buck 2 ; though as Tylney held the post till 

his death in October, 1610, it would have been of little use to Lyly 

except for what he might have raised upon his prospects. Evidently 

he still leans upon Burleigh's interest. The letter is written, legibly 

enough, in Lyly's own handwriting—the same as that of the letter to 

Burleigh of July, 1582. It is endorsed ' 1597 22, Decern : M r . Lyllie 

to my M r ,' and superscribed ' For y e right ho: Sir Robt: Cecil 

night Principalle Secretary to her Matie'; and runs as follows :— 

'Right Ho : I haue not byn importunat, that thes 12 yeres w b vnwearied 

pacienc, have entertayned the p'roguig of her maties promises . 

w ch if in the 13, may conclud w h the Parlement, I will think the greves 

of tymes past, but pastymes. I wold have wayted on yo r Ho : wer 1 not 

trobled w h the Cort cough-thought, that is to gepe so long for a suit 

& cough w b out it. 

' Offices in Reuersion are forestalld, in possession ingrost, & that of y e 

Reuells countenaunced upon Buck, wherin the Justic of an ogre [or 

' oyre'] 8 shewes his affection to y e keper, & partialty, to y e sheppard 

. a french fauor 4 , I hope I shall not be vsed worse then an old 

horse, who after seruic done hath his shoes puld of & tumd to grass, not 

suffred to sterve in y e stable. I will Cast my wittes in a new mould, 

1 State Papers (Record Office), Domestic: Elizabeth, vol. cclxv. fols. 12 8-9, No. 61. 

3 The Cat. of State Papers, Domestic, 1603-1610, p. 16, records the l Grant to 

I5uck of the Mastership of the Revels' under date July 2 1, 1603. The earliest 

date of his appearance as licenser of plays in the Stat. Peg. is April 10, 1607 

(Arber's Transcript, iii. 346). 

3 ' Justic of an ogre' [or i oyre']: a difficult passage. I offer three lame explanations. 

(1) ' ogre' quite general, 'a matter wherein even an ogre would be just 

enough to favour the keeper (i. e. Lyly himself) rather than the game' (a wholly 

inapposite pun on duck). 

(2) The ' ogre' is Tylney, with whom Lyly was then quarrelling (see Lansd. MS. 

83, No. 63, and below, pp. 69-70) and whom he supposes to have influenced the 

Queen against his claims. In this case ' justic,' affection ' and ' partialty' are 

used ironically. 

(3) Reading 'oyre,' for 'oyer': ' the judge (or justice) of a court of oyer and 

termimr (hear and determine)/ used here quite generally for such an investigation 

as that ordered by Burleigh shortly after Nov. 5, 1597 into the quarrel between the 

officers and creditors of the Revels, p. 69. 

4 a french fauor] These three words are an insertion written above the line, the 

mark for their insertion intervening between ' sheppard' and the full stop which 

follows it; but as this full stop is immediately followed by a comma, it seems 

clear that the mark of insertion should properly have come between the full stop 

and the comma, and that the three words belong in sense to what follows, not to 

what precedes. Their sense seems to be ' a favour which is really none/ like 

' French leave ': but the characters might possibly be read as ' fienet.' i. e. feigned.

LETTER TO SIR ROBERT CECIL 69 

& turne the water Course by a contrary Sluce, for I find it folly that on 

foot being in the grave, I shuld have the other on the stage. Yf her l 

matie in Comeseration of my estat, in remembraunc of her gracious 

promises, will vousalf, but any hope of fauer in my declining yeres, I shall 

then w h the Snake cast of my skynne, & my Byll. w h the Eagle, renuing 

my tyme, running it over, & reviving my wittes by spending them. In 

this I humbly entreat yo r H : fauor, & Counsell, being destitut both of 

frends & Conciept, being my self a miserable example of misfortune that 

have no companion to complayne w h me, I only being he y fc can be 

rekoned, to whome her matie hath p'mised much & done nothing. Thus 

humbly remembring my duty, I commd yo r ho : to the Almighty, praing 

for yo r Long lif w h encreas of hapines . De : 22 . 1597. 

' Yo r H in all duty 

JH : LYLY.' 

There is nothing to show that Cecil took any action on this 

appeal. His attention at this time was fully occupied with foreign 

affairs, with the consolidation of his own position against the rivalry 

of Essex, and with his father. Lord Burleigh's, failing health. A 

matter which came before Burleigh at this time may have tended 

to delay the satisfaction of Lyly's claims. Some workmen and 

tradesmen accustomed to supply the Revels Office, had on Nov. 5 

petitioned the Lord Treasurer for five years' arrears of payment, 

detained from them in consequence of a disagreement between the 

Master and the inferior officers, who seem to have devoted sums, 

handed to them by Tylney for the liquidation of expenses, to supplying 

what they deemed a deficiency in the salaries due to themselves. 

Tylney took his stand on some composition previously 

arranged by the Lord Treasurer, which the other officers now 

declined to accept as binding. Burleigh appointed one of the 

Auditors of the Imprest and one of the Barons of the Exchequer-to 

hear both officers and petitioners and adjudicate between them; 

and on Jan. 5, 1597-8, they informed him of their decision— 

' that out of the xl 11. by yeare allowed for flees or wage for their attendaunces 

the M r of the Revelles shall yearely alio we and paye the severall 

Somes of mony vnd r written viz. 

To the Clarke Comptroller of that Office . . . viij 11 

To the Yeoman of the Revells viij 11 

To the Groome of the Office xl 8 

To the Porter of St. Johns xx 8 2 ; 

1 her] This word is preceded in the MS. by ' in' erased. 

a Lansdowne MS. 83, No. 63.

70 


From this we learn that the receipts of the officers, which had in 

earlier years varied with the number of days on which their attendance 

was given, were now fixed at a definite sum, which forms 

a rough average equivalent to their previous receipts as shown in the 

Revels Accounts, though the balance left in the Master's hands 

seems a good deal larger. But Burleigh, in an autograph note, 

insists on further information as to the satisfaction of the petitioning 

creditors. If Lyly was Clerk-Controller, he would, I believe, be 

paymaster, and therefore chiefly responsible for the retention of the 

tradesmen's money 1 

Failing to obtain satisfaction, Lyly again, in 1598, addressed the 

Queen in terms of surprising boldness, plainer than Horace ventured 

to use towards Maecenas, stronger than those of Moliere's remonstrance 

with Louis XIV on the suppression of Tartuffe. The 

temerity of such a tone taken to the imperious and all-flattered 

Elizabeth shows the petition, in spite of the politic humour of the 

closing sentence, to be the utterance of despair. Bitterness like this 

cannot be referred to mere petulant exaggeration, or simply to that 

pleasure in forcible expression which makes the pen in some men's 

hands a more unruly instrument even than the tongue. It is evident 

that beneath his masking and fooling and play-writing Lyly had been 

suffering the keenest anxiety, and that the iron had entered into his 

soul. I give the petition, like the former, from Harleian MS. 

1323, fol. 250. 

1 ANOTHER ; L'RE : TO, QUEENE, ELIZABETH : FFROM JOHN : LTLLYE : 2 

' Most: gratious, and dread Soveraigne; 

4 Tyme ; cannott worke my peticons, nor my peticons, the tyme ; After 

many yeares servyce ; It pleased yo r : Ma tie : To except; against Tentes 

and Toyles, I wishe ; that ffor Tentes I might putt in Tenefft tes soe 

should I bee eased w th some Toyles ; some Landes some goodes, ffynes, 

or fforffeytures, that should ffall, by the iust ffall of the 3 most ffalce 

Trayto rs : That seeinge nothinge, will come by the Revells, I may praye 

vppon Rebells ; 

' Thirteen yeares, yo r : Highnes Servant; Butt; yett nothinge, Twenty 

ffrindes, that though they say, they wilbee sure, I ffinde them, sure to 

slowe 4, A thowsand hopes, butt all, noethinge; A hundred promises, butt 

1 See above, pp. 41-2. 

2 In Harl. MS. 1877 ' John Lillies second PeticSn to the Qneene.' 

8 Harl. MS. 1877 'these.' In all cases where not otherwise specified the 

Hargrave MS. 225 agrees with that from which our text is taken, Harl. MS. 1323. 

* i.e. too slow. Harg. MS, 'two slowe'; Harl. MS. 1877 'to be slowe,' 

probably right.

HIS SECOND PETITION, 1598 71 

yett noethinge, Thus Castinge vpp : an1 Inventorye of my ffrindes, hopes, 

promises, and Tymes, the ; Suilia, Total: Amounteth to Just nothinge 

My Last Will, is shorter, then myne Invention; Butt, three Legacyes, 

I Bequeath 2 , Patience to my Credit rs : Mellanchollie, w th out Measure to 

my ffrindes, And Beggerry, w th out shame, to my ffamilye, 

Si placet hoc meruiq. q d : ô tua ffulmina cessant s 

Virgo Parens Princeps: 

In all humillitye, I, intreat, that I may dedicate, to yor: sacred Ma t;e : 

(Lillye de Tristibus, wherein shalbee seene; Patience; Labo rs : and 

Misfortunes, 

Quorum si singula nostram; 

ffrangere non poterunt, poterant tamen oia mentem 4 ; 

' The Last; and the Least, that yf I bee Borne to haue noethinge, I may 

haue a Protection to paye noethinge, w ch Suite; is lyke his, whoe 5 

haveinge rfollowed the Co rte : Tenn yeares, ffor Recompence of his servyce 

; Comitteth 6 a Robberye, and tooke it out; in a Pardon : 

JOHN : LILLYE/ 7; 

The Queen's complaint about Tentes and Toyles may have originated 

in some real or supposed participation by Lyjy in the abuse 

of lending out the Revels costumes on hire to various companies, 

of which we have an instance in the complaint addressed to Sir 

William Cecil in 1571 by Thomas Gylles, a costumier, whose business 

was injured by the practice 8 . But since Lyly here attempts no 

answer to the complaint, and even ventures to pun upon it, we may 

fairly suppose he refers to a matter of some time past, from complicity 

in which he had already practically cleared himself. His 

hope of' forfeitures that should fall by the just fall of the most false 

traitors' is best referred to the rebels in Ireland. On Aug. 14, 1598, 

ten days after Burleigh's death, Sir Henry Bagnell, the Queen's 

marshal, attempting with 4,000 men to relieve the fort of Blackwatertown 

besieged by Tyrone, had been defeated and killed with 

the loss of more than 700 men and many other officers. The disaster 

1 8 

Harl. MS. 1877 ' the.' 

' I Bequeath/ om. Harl. MS. 1877. 

• Harl. MS. 1877 has 'Si placet hoc merui quod ô tua fulmina cessent.' 

4 

Quorum . . . nostram, &c. : in Harl. MS. 1877 an original a seems to have 

been changed into a u in 'nostram' and the first 'poterant.' Harg. MS. has 

' poterant' in both cases. The lines are from Ovid, Met. ix. 607-8 : 

'Omnia fecissem, quorum si singula duram 

Flectere non poterant, potuissent omnia, mentem.' 

5 

Harl. MS. 1877 ' that.' 6 Harl. MS. 1877 ' comitted.' 

7 

The signature is wanting in Harl. MS. 1877. 

8 

Lansdowne MS. 13, No. 3, quoted by Collier, i. 198. Gylles' complaint is 

directed rather against the Yeoman, who was (as we saw, p. 41 note 2) the 

proper custodian of the costumes ; but there seems to have been some confusion of 

function among the junior officers of the Revels, and the investigation of 1597 

to which I adverted above is evidence of a solidarity between them.


had produced a profound impression; and active measures, which 

culminated in Essex's departure in the following year, were soon inaugurated 

to meet the danger \ The occurrence may suggest a date 

for Lyly's petition in the latter part of the year; and the remark 

about ' paying nothing' if he is to 'haue nothing/ may derive point 

from the fact—part of the scanty harvest of my researches at the 

Record Office—that in an assessment made on persons living in the 

ward of Farringdon Without, and dated Oct. i, 1598, ' John Lilly 

gent' is rated to pay eight shillings on property of the value of three 

pounds in the parish of Saint Bartholomew the Less, as his share of 

the first instalment of the heavy subsidy (six Fifteenths and Tenths) 

granted by Parliament in January, 1597-8, of which Parliament he 

was a member. He is assessed at a similar sum on a similar amount 

of property for the second and the third instalments, in documents 

dated Oct. 1, 1599 and 1600, respectively 2 . 

It is small wonder, considering its tone, that this second appeal, 

like the former, passed unheeded. In the following year, however, 

his distresses were to some extent relieved by the renewal of the 

Paul's Boys' permission to act, I infer that their inhibition was removed 

at least as early as 1599 from the fact that on July 24, Sept. 8, 

and Nov. 25, respectively, of the succeeding year (1600) are entered, 

in the Stationers' Register, The Maydes Metamorphosis', Jack Drum's 

Entertainment, and Lyly's own Loves Metamorphosis, the first of 

which is announced on its title-page (dated 1600) as having been 

'sundrie times Acted by the Children of Powles,' the second in the 

entry of Sept. 8 as ' diuerse tymes Acted by the Children of Paules,' 

while the third is also stated in the entry of Nov. 25 to have been 

'playd by the Children of Paules,' to which the title-page of 1601 

adds, ' and now by the Children of the Chappell.' Considering that 

1 See Diet. Nat. Biog., art. ' Elizabeth, 1533-1603,' and Cal. of State Papers, 

Domestic, 1598-1603. 

3 See the Subsidy Rolls in the Record Office—' Lay Subsidies' 1, 4 6 1 4 6 1 45 

—the last of which is (or was) wrongly catalogued as referring to a grant of 

23 Elizabeth; but the application of some gall to the almost obliteiated writing at 

my request showed the date in the heading of the Indenture to be ' two and 

fortith yere,' i.e. 1600, to my considerable disappointment, as 'two and twenteth' 

would have located Lyly in St. Bartholomew's in 1580, and settled some doubts. 

I may add that I have examined all the other Subsidy Records relating to the ward 

of Farringdon Without during the years 1576-1610, without finding his name 

either in other Assessments or in the lists of defaulters: nor does he appear in the 

Assessment for the • Libertyes of the Duchy of Lancaster without Temple Bar' in 

31 Eliz. (1589)—No. W (additional)—the single surviving document dealing 

with those liberties (which of course included the Savoy) in the period above 

named.

THE PAUL'S BOYS RECOMMENCE 73 

plays did not as a rule find their way to the printer's until at least 

a year or two after their production, it seems likely that the Paul's 

Boys had in 1600 already been acting again for some time past. 

The passage quoted by Malone and Collier from Jack Drum's 

Entertainment, though argument that the boys were not yet at home 

with their task, can hardly have been written later than the beginning 

of 1600, and so supports my contention of a recommencement 

at least as early as 1599 1. 

The first of the three pieces just named, The Maydes Metamorphosis, 

has been claimed for Lyly; but incorrectly, I think, though 

it is just possible that, having to coach the Paul's Boys in the acting 

of it, he added to the part of the comic pages, Joculo, Mopso and 

Frisco, the two prose-scenes, ii. 2 (which contains some pretty fairysongs) 

and iii. 2, and possibly the duet in Act iv, and the closing 

song of Act v. Both this play and Loves Metamorphosis are probably 

included among the ' musty fopperies of antiquity' of which Brabant 

senior complains, i. e. both were probably old in date in 1600, as 

well as based on classical antiquity. We know Loves Metamorphosis 

to have been transferred to the Chapel Children before its publication 

in 1601, and it is probably to be reckoned among those recent 

revivals alluded to by Ben Jonson in the Induction to Cynthias 

Revels, which was produced by those children in 1600 2 . Originally 

1 The passage, quoted in Malone's Life of Shakespeare (Boswell's Malone', ii. 

p. 193) and by Collier, i. 273, is also interesting to us as evidence of the higher 

class of audience attending the St. Paul's performances, to which the price of 

admission was double that charged at an ordinary playhouse like ' The Theater' 

at Newington Butts ; see marginal note in Pappe quoted above, p. 53, and compare 

especially Lyly's Prologue to Midas. In the Introduction to J. D. E. are allusions 

to 'this geneious presence' and 'this choice selected audience': the following 

passage from Act v is that quoted by Malone and Collier:— 

'Sir Edward Fortune. I saw the children of Powles last night, 

And troth they pleas'd me pretty, pretty well: 

The apes in time will do it handsomely. 

Planet. V faith, 1 like the audience that frequenteth there, 

With much applause. A man shall not be choked 

With the stench of garlick, nor be pasted 

To the barmy jacket of a beer brewer. 

Brabant Jun. 'Tis a good gentle audience, and I hope the boys 

Will come one day into the Court of Requests. 

Brabant Sen, Aye; an they had good plays ; but they produce 

Such musty fopperies of antiquity, 

And do not suit the humorous age's back 

With clothes in fashion.' 

2 t The umbrse or ghosts of some three or four plays departed a dozen years 

since, have been seen walking on your stage here' (ed. 1838, p. 71). Jonson, the 

master of a newer and sturdier handicraft, whose plays were displacing Lyly's, 

had already satirized him in Fastidious Brisk in Every Man Out of his Humour, 

1599. See above, p. 61, and for date of Loves Met. pp. 45-6.


composed and acted, as I believe, between 1585 and 1589, it had 

been reserved from the press and now reappears first with the Paul's 

Boys, with the excision perhaps of a former comic element that had 

caused offence, but with new reminiscences of Book III of the 

Faerie Queene, and an allegorical adaptation of the relations between 

Ceres and the ungrateful Erisichthon to the recent differences between 

the Queen and Essex. Essex, whose arrogant pretensions had 

long been a source of anxiety and disturbance, had been packed off 

to Ireland in March, 1599, but returned suddenly without leave in 

September. The Queen received him civilly, but could not pass over 

the offence, and confined him for six months in his own house. In 

June, 1600, he was summoned to answer for his conduct before a 

commission consisting of the chief officers of state. His submission 

and Cecil's discreet generosity procured him pardon ; and his rebellious 

outbreak did not take place till the following February, before 

which time of course Lyly's play had been produced \ We may 

trace a reminiscence of the courtly compliment of Sapho in the 

fact that Cupid is made the means of reconciling the goddess to her 

churlish husbandman. 

In 1599, as mentioned above, Lyly is sketched in Every Man Out 

of his Humour as Fastidious Brisk, a character whose fopperies 

and fashionable ambitions land him in the Counter for debt, from 

which an intrigue with his creditor's foolish wife, offered by her 

rather than sought by him, fails to rescue him. There is no hope 

of disentangling the elements of truth from those of fiction in Jonson's 

caricature; and if I mention here another John Lilly, who in July 

of this year (1599) was imprisoned in the Tower on suspicion of 

assisting Gerard the Jesuit to escape from it, it is only to dissociate 

that staunch Protestant, our author, from him 2 . On July 3, 1600, 

another son of his was baptized at St. Bartholomew the Less by the 

name of John ; and from Oct. 27 to Dec. 19, 1601, he sat again in 

Parliament for Aylesbury. It was possibly at this period that he 

became known to Fulke Greville, the poet and friend of Sir Philip 

1 See Camden's Annals of Elizabeth, vol. ii. pp. 608, 618, 626, &c, and article 

' Cecil, Robert, Earl of Salisbury/ in the Dict. Nat. Biog. 

2 See Cal. of State Papers; Domestic, 1598-1601, pp. 253-4; and for Lyly's 

Protestantism see Euphues and his England, vol. ii. p. 192, his respectful account 

of the Establishment; p. 206 11. 9—13, 26 sqq., his sympathy with Edward VI, 

and with Elizabeth in her sisters reign; ib. L 36, ' placed in the seate royall, she 

first of al established religion, banished poperie, aduanced the worde, that before 

was so much defaced.' Cf. also pp. 24 1. 21, 89 1. 1, 214 1. 22. Cf. Pappe, ad 

med. (vol. iii) : ' the Papists haue been making roddes for vs this thirtie yeares.'

SECOND LETTER TO CECIL, 1603 75 

Sidney, who represented Warwickshire in the same Parliament; but 

their acquaintance may quite as well date from old Savoy days, when 

Greville, Dyer, and Sidney were members of Harvey's,'Areopagus,' 

and Lyly was probably introduced to them all. Greville, a favourite 

with the Queen since his first entry into Court life in 1577, had held 

some important posts in the last years of the century, and took part 

in the arrest of Essex on Feb. 8, 1600-1 1. Lyly's attempt to enlist 

him in support of his claims may have been due to a sense of Cecil's 

coldness to his interests; but considering the latter's jealousy of 

Greville, the step was not very judicious, and Lyly's attitude in the 

letter I am about to quote betrays, perhaps, some sense of awkwardness. 

That letter is mentioned in the Seventh Report of the Historical 

MSS. Commission 2 as existing among the MSS. at Hatfield; 

and by the kindness of Lord Salisbury I have been furnished with 

a copy. It runs as follows :— 

(Cecil Papers 91/103) 

'JHON LYLY TO SIR ROBERT CECIL. 

* My duety Humbly remembred 

' My fortunes are come to this issue, the Q. s mercy, & M r Grevill's Care, 

yo r H. good word to both, may work a Conclusion of all my cares. 

My wiff deliuered my Petition to the Q. who accepted it graciously & as 

1 desyred, referred it, to M r . Grevil, for I durst not presume, to name 

yo r honnor. 

'The Copye I haue sent inclosed, not to troble y r Ho., but only to 

vousalf a view of the particulers, all wowen [woven] in one, is but to 

haue Something, And so praing for yo r Ho. Long Lif, wt increas of 

happines, I humbly end Feb. 4 1602 Yo r H. in all duety 

JHON • LYLY / ' 

The petition to which this letter refers is not mentioned in the 

Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, nor by Lord Salisbury's 

private secretary in the letter which accompanied the above copy; 

so we must suppose it lost, unless indeed the petition mentioned in 

the Commission's Third Report as existing among the Bute MSS. 

be identical with it 3 . But the letter itself adds a good deal to our 

1 

See Dict. Nat. Biog., art. 'Greville, Sir Fulke, first Lord Brooke, 1554-1628.' 

He was made a knight of the Bath by James I in 1603. 

a P. 183 a. 

3 

Among these MSS. the twenty-fourth article in what is described as ' A volume 

of Historical Miscellanies, chiefly relating to the reigns of Elizabeth and James I' 

is said to be ' A Petic'on from John Lilly to y e Queene'; but whether this is a newone, 

or merely a fifth copy of one or both of those we know already, there is no 

means of deciding, and Lord Bute's unfortunate death (,Oct. 1900) has deprived 

me of answer to my inquiries.


knowledge of the close of Lyly's life, showing that some four and 

a half years after his petition of 1598 his claims were still unsatisfied ; 

but that he was still hoping, still possessed friends, and, what was 

far better, a wife to give him sympathy and active help. 

Blount, in his Address to the Reader, 1632, describes Lyly as 

'a Rare and Excellent Poet, whom Queene Elizabeth then heard, 

Graced, and Rewarded'; but is he speaking by the book? The 

Queen died six weeks after the date of the letter just quoted, on the 

last day of the civil year, March 24, 1602-3. It would be pleasant 

to think that before her death things were at least put in train for 

satisfying the modest claims of one who had done, perhaps, more 

than any to lighten for her the harassing cares of sovereignty; but 

I can find no direct evidence for it, for we can hardly take the 

increase of his family as such. On May 21 of this same year 1603 

a daughter of his was baptized by the name of Frances, the same 

that he had given to the sprightly young woman he married twentythree 

years before to Philautus; while on Jan. 17, 1604-5 was baPtized 

another son, Thomas, and on May 14, 1605 was buried another 

daughter, Elizabeth, of whose baptism we have no record. In that 

year a tenth edition of both Parts of Euphues was issued, the first that 

is traceable since 1597. In the hands of its new publisher, William 

Leake, the book appears to have taken a fresh lease of vitality; for 

an eleventh edition of either Part followed in 1606, and in 1607 

a twelfth of Part I, the twelfth of Part II being issued in 1609. 

This twelfth edition was no doubt occasioned by the author's death. 

The Register of St. Bartholomew the Less records his burial on 

Nov. 30, 1606, when he would be in his fifty-third year. No monument, 

tombstone, or inscription bearing his name has survived the 

restoration of all except the western end of the church. One or two 

nearly contemporary tablets have been preserved on the walls, but 

the floor has been entirely relaid with tiles. 

The career I have thus endeavoured, by the aid of the inadequate 

materials available, to sketch, should I think be regarded as an 

unfortunate rather than an unhappy one; and its misfortunes were, in 

part, self-caused. In the light of the admission, made in his own 

person in his earliest work— 1 1 haue euer thought so supersticiously 

of wit, that I feare I haue committed Idolatry agaynst wisedome1''— 

we may see John Lyly as, more or less, throughout life his own 

1 Euphuesj p. 196, 1. 20.

HIS CHARACTER 77 

enemy. His is the old story of the over-high estimate set by a 

superficial world on powers which ripen early and are most readily 

at command; and of undue self-confidence induced in the owner of 

such powers, making him negligent of the more solid and verefiable 

side of life, and careless of accumulating envy and dislike. The 

opening of his career exhibits all the marks of ' brilliance'; its close 

finds him painfully meeting the blank cheques commonly drawn by 

such a character upon maturity and old age. The showy and superficial 

was always the first consideration with Lyly; wit before learning, 

speech before thought, manner before matter, shadow before 

substance. If his earliest work exhibits an ample grasp and 

approval of the diametrically opposite principle, that approval was 

mainly conventional, or merely intellectual, and had little influence 

upon his own practice. From the first he exhibited an impatience 

of the beaten path, and a baneful reliance upon the influence of 

great friends. Social eminence was his ideal. Perfectly capable 

of estimating Court life at its true worth, he nevertheless entered 

voluntarily on a long career of chagrin which he might have foreseen. 

We see him, sent to Oxford by the indulgence of his parents or the 

liberality of Lord Burleigh, disdaining or ignoring the studies prescribed 

there, but winning repute as a madcap and a wit; quarrelling 

with his dons, and yet attempting an impudent aggression upon 

them which Burleigh refused to sanction. We see him, next, procuring 

by his social talents and the help of friends a ready 

admission to Court, and turning indeed to good account the knowledge 

acquired during ten years of desultory study in a work which 

deserved all its success; but yet unable to refrain from venting 

therein his private grudge in sweeping condemnation of the University 

at large, an indiscretion by which he can hardly have profited. 

We see him making enemies in the household of Lord Oxford; 

carelessly estranging his old friend Harvey'; hedging injudiciously, 

perhaps, between Leicester and Burleigh, as later between Greville 

and Cecil; probably bringing himself and the Paul's Boys into 

1 The following in Harvey's Advertisement to Papp-Hatchett is very significant: 

' He winneth not most abroad that weeneth most at home : and in my poore fancy, 

it were not greatly amisse, euen for the pertest, and gajest companions, (notwithstanding 

whatsoeuer courtly holly-water, or plausible hopes of preferment) to 

deigne their olde familiars the continuance of their former courtesies, without 

contempt of the barrainest giftes, or empeachment of the meanest persons. The 

simplist man in a parish is a shrewd foole; and Humanity an Image of Diuinity ; 

that pulleth downe the howty, and setteth vp the meek. Euphues, it is good to bee 

merry, and Lyly it is good to be wise, and Papp-Hatchett it is better to lose a new 

jest than an old friend.' Works (ed. Grosart), vol. ii. p, 125.


trouble by too bold a caricature of Marprelate; incurring the 

Queen's rebuke by inadequate or faulty discharge of his duties in 

the Revels Office; and, finally, reproaching his irascible mistress 

with ingratitude in terms as bitter, if not so dignified, as those of 

Johnson's famous letter to Lord Chesterfield. Envy of his early 

success and high repute, dislike of his self-assertion and mordant 

tongue, must needs, I think, have united with his want of adequate 

funds and the usual difficulties besetting aspirants and petitioners 

at Court, to keep him for ever expectant and for ever disappointed. 

Add to this the accident that during the eight years of the Paul's 

Boys' inhibition there rose into the dramatic heaven a star of such 

a magnitude as reduced Lyly and his achievements to a remote 

and insignificant twinkle, and that with it or about it came a number 

of brilliant satellites; and we need not wonder that Lyly ended 

his days in poverty and neglect. In 1591, when the boys were 

suppressed, Lyly had no rival as a Court dramatist, and none whose 

fame on the public stage could be compared with his, except Marlowe. 

In 1603, when he wrote to Cecil, the drama boasted works which 

threw the best that Lyly ever had, or could have, produced, utterly 

into the shade; though to the genius of him who created them his 

own had contributed much l . It is not surprising, therefore, that 

between 1595 and 1606 we have practically no new work from 

Lyly's pen. 

But I do not think his life as a whole deserves to be called 

unhappy. The superficiality of character indicated above, and 

reflected in his plays, would form his best defensive armour. He 

had buoyancy enough to survive disappointment, and fits of bitterness 

or depression such as are revealed by his petitions could have 

been but temporary. The earnest tone of Euphues, in which 

Morley found evidence of his deep moral seriousness, I should 

rather attribute to the power of strongly realizing his theme, and to 

the attraction which the didactic attitude generally presents to 

youth. It is hard to resist the comedies' suggestion of a real 

light-heartedness ; they contain no touch of bitterness until we 

reach Stesias in The Woman, and I do not think it can at all be 

said that the wit and gaiety fall off towards the close. To one who 

worshipped brains as Lyly did, the sense of intellectual achievement 

must always count as the most important factor in content; and, 

1 Shakespeare's debt is discussed in the essay on ' Euphuism' below, and in that 

on ' Lyly as a Playwright,' vol. ii.

HIS REPUTATION 79 

whatever his pecuniary fortunes, he had at least the consolations of 

distinction from his first entry of the courtly circle. If his plays 

were outshone, his novel survived its temporary displacement by the 

Arcadia, and must have earned him an immense reputation, the 

evidences of which are not wanting in the flattering allusions of 

William Webbe l , of John Eliot 2 , of Francis Meres 3 , and of Ben 

Jonson in 1623 4 , to say nothing of the high compliment paid him 

by Spenser in the stanzas quoted above, and of the imitation of him 

by Greene, Nash, Lodge and others. And, if Lyly had enemies, he 

also had friends—Watson, Harvey, Nash, Lok—cultivated men who 

shared his tastes and could appreciate his gifts; and, in spite of 

Harvey's malicious suggestions later on, and some possible youthful 

excess that occasioned them, one feels that he was much too fastidious 

and refined to lose self-mastery, to sink into a tavern-roisterer 

or toss-pot, like Greene, or Marlowe or some of the rest. Nor was his 

life denied the dearer companionship of marriage. Famous, clever, 

poor and disappointed, he is among the most distinct of Elizabethans. 

We can picture him, one of the most familiar figures at 

Whitehall, Greenwich, Richmond, or Hampton Court, stepping 

daintily about the ante-chambers, shrewd and humorous; with 

1 Discourse of English Poetrie (1586), ed. Arber, p. 46 (speaking of 'the 

great good grace and sweet vayne which Eloquence hath attained in our speeche ') : 

' Among whom I thinke there is none that will gainsay, but Master Iohn Lilly 

hath deserued moste high commendations, as he which hath stept one steppe 

further therein then any either before or since he first began the wyttie discourse of 

his Euphues. Whose workes, surely in respecte of his singuler eloquence and 

braue composition of apt words and sentences, let the learned examine and make 

try all thereof thorough all the partes of Rethoricke, in fLtte phrases, in pithy 

sentences, in gallant tropes, in flowing speeche, in plaine sence, and surely in my 

iudgment, I thinke he wyll yeelde him that verdict, which Quintilian giueth of 

bothe the best Orators Demosthenes and Tully, that from the one, nothing may be 

taken away, to the other, nothing may be added.* 

a Verses prefixed to Greene's Pe7-imedes. The Blacke Smith, 1588: ' Greene et 

Lylli tous deux rafiineurs de l'Anglois.' Among the commendatory verse to 

Greene's Alcida (lie. Dec. 9, 1588) occurs the following:— 

' Floruit Ascamus, Chekus, Gascoynus, et alter 

Tullius Anglorum nunc viuens Lillius, ilium 

Consequitur Grenus, praeclarus uterque Poeta.' 

8 Palladis Tamia, 1598, fol. 284, 'The best for Comedy amongst vs bee, 

Edward Earle of Oxforde, Doctor Gager of Oxforde, Maister Rowley once a rare 

Scholler of learned Pembrooke Hall in Cambridge, Maister Edwardes one of her 

Maiesties Chappell, eloquent and wittie Iohn Lilly, Lodge, Gascoyne, Greene, 

Shakespeare, Thomas Nash, Thomas Heywood, Anthony Mundye our best plotter, 

Chapman, Porter, Wilson, Hathway, and Henry Gkettle? 

4 Verses prefixed to the First Folio Shakespeare:— 

' For if I thought my iudgement were of yeeres, 

I should commit thee surely with thy peeres, 

And tell, how farre thou didst our Lily out-shine, 

Or sporting Kid, or Marlowes mighty line.'


a keen eye for the follies, the fashions, the swagger and pretension 

of the courtiers 1; now enjoying a brisk passage of arms with some 

sprightly maid of honour, now chuckling over the last impertinence 

of the Court pages—with an insuperable affection for the motley show, 

the buzz of the great bazaar, surviving the clearest perception of its 

hollowness and inability to satisfy. 

It is well that he enjoyed due meed of fame and importance in his 

lifetime. The reaction against his excessive mannerism, which first 

finds expression in Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, 1591 2 , left him all 

but forgotten within forty years after his death. Blount's attempt, in 

1 Cp. Pappe ' To the Reader': ' He saith he is a Courtier ... I knowe all the 

fooles there, and yet cannot gesse at him.' 

a Sonnet III. ' Let dainty wits cry on the sisters nine, 

That, bravely mask'd, their fancies may be told : 

Or, Pindar's apes, flaunt they in phrases fine, 

Enam'ling, with py'd flowers, their thoughts of gold. 

Or else, let them in statelier glory shine, 

Ennobling new-found tropes, with problems old: 

Or, with strange similes enrich each line, 

Of herbs, or beasts, which Ind' or Afric hold.' 

{Miscell. Works, Gibbings, 1893.) 

This is not specially condemnatory; but there is no doubt that Sidney was 

regarded as, and in his Arcadia actually was, representative of a reaction against 

j.yly's excessive antithesis, and use of 'mechanical devices' and natural history, 

though Arcadianism itself was an affectation of a worse kind. The passage most 

often quoted as proof of this reaction is from Michael Drayton's poem Of Poets and 

Poesie, near the end of his first folio volume of poems, 1627 :— 

'The noble Sidney . . . did first 1 educe 

Our tongue from Lillies writing then in vse; 

Talking of Stones, Stars, Plants, of fishes, Flyes, 

Playing with words, and idle Similies.' 

Nash in his Epistle prefixed to Menaphon had somewhat depreciated Lyly 

with other writers in order to exalt Greene (see Essay on Euphnes, p. 146), and the 

absolutely earliest instance of direct disapproval of Euphuism is found in the reflections 

of Harvey scattered through the Advertisement to Papp-Hatchett, written 

in the autumn of 1589, though not printed till 1593 : e.g. 

' I cannot stand nosing of candlesticks, or Euphuing of similies, alia Savoica: it 

might happily be done with a trice: but every man hath not the gift of Albertus 

Magnus: rare birds are dainty, and they are queint creatures that are privileged to 

create new creatures. When I have a mint of precious stones, and strange lowls, 

beasts, and fishes, of mine own coining (I could name the party, that, in comparison 

of his own natural inventions, termed Pliny a barren womb), I may, peradventure, 

bless you with your own crosses, and pay you with the usury of your own coin . . .' 

' I long since found by experience, how Dranting of verses, and Euphuing of 

sentences, did edify . ..' 

1 Gentlemen, I haue given you a taste of his sugar-loaf, that weeneth Sidney's 

dainties, Ascham's comfits, nothing comparable to his Pap. Some of you dreamed 

of electuaries, of gems, and other precious restoratiues; of the quintessence of 

amber and pearl dissolved, of I wot not what incredible delicacies : but his gemmint 

is not always current; and as busy men, so painted boxes and gallipots must 

have a vacation. . . . The finest wits prefer the loosest period in M. Ascham, or 

Sir Philip Sidney, before the tricksiest page in Euphues or Pap-hatchet.' (Brydges' 

Archaica, ii. 85sqq., 139, 140.)

LATER NEGLECT 81 

1631 l , to revive an interest in -his plays can hardly be said to have 

succeeded; and though the demand for Euphues was not exhausted 

until a seventeenth edition had been printed in 1636, he is treated 

thenceforward as hopelessly antiquated. Edward Phillips, in 1665, 

says that his plays ' might perhaps, when time was, be in very 

good request 2 .' William Winstanley, in 1687, speaks of them as 

' being in great esteem in his time and acted then with great 

applause of the Vulgar, as such things which they understood, and 

composed chiefly to make them merry V In 1691 we have Wood's 

memoir of Lyly in the Athenae Oxonienses; and in the same year 

Gerard Langbaine evidently regards his plays as meritorious attempts, 

though he doesn't know the Euphues 4 ; and Oldys adds in his MS. 

notes a judicious condemnation of Lyly's style. In 1716 a slightly 

abbreviated version of the First Part of Euphues appeared, with 

modernized phraseology, under the title of Euphues and Lucilla; 

or the False Friend and Inconstant Mistress; and it was re-issued in 

1718 : but shortly afterwards, in 1742, Richardson's Pamela and 

Fielding's Joseph Andrews are published, and Euphues disappears 

from the stream of English printing for exactly 150 years, until 

Professor Arber's reprint from original editions in 1868. In 1756 

and 1758 Lyly is remotely known to Peter Whalley 5 and another 

writer 6 as ' one Lilly'; and receives contemptuous mention in 

Berkenhout's Biographia Literaria, 1777 7 . He owed his revival in 

the first instance to the increasing interest and thoroughness of the 

study of Shakespeare. Malone's favourable notice in his Life of 

the latter poet (1790) 8 heralded that recovery of him which the 

scholarship of the nineteenth century has accomplished; and Arber 

cites opinions on him, which I have not space to quote, from 

Gifford's edition of Jonson (1816), from Nathan Drake's Shakespeare 

and his Times (1817), from Scott's Monastery (Introduction to ed. 

1831), where Lyly's style had been absurdly caricatured in Sir 

Piercie Shafton, whose talk is far more Arcadian than Euphuistic, 

1 

Sixe Covrt Comedies . . . By the only Rare Poet of that Time, The wittie . . . 

Iohn Lilly . . . 1632, 121110. See introductory matter to the Plays in vol. ii. 

2 

Theatrum Poetarum . . . London .. , M.DCLXV. i2mo: p. 112. 

8 

The Lives of the most famous English Poets . . . London . . . 1687. 8vo: p. 97. 

* English Dramatick Poets (Oxford, 1691)—under name ' Lilly.' 

5 

Note on Fallace's speech {Every Man Out of His Humour, v. 7) in his 

edition* of Ben Jonson, vol. i. p. 286. I am indebted for this, and several other 

references, to the history of opinion on Lyly given in Arber's Introduction to 

Euphues, pp. 13-27. 

• Literary Magazine, May, 1758, p. 197. 

7 Vol. i. p. 377, note (a). 

8 

Bosweli's Malone, vol. ii. pp. 173-97. 

BOND 1 G


from Hallam's Literature of Europe (1839), from Kingsley's Westward 

Ho! (1855), from Marsh's lectures at Boston (1860), and 

from Morley's Quarterly article on ' Euphuism' (April, 1861). England 

and Germany have vied of late in discussion of the style; 

but the modern approval of his romance was hardly discriminate 

until the appearance of M. Jusserand's brilliant work The English 

Novel in the Time of Shakespeare' while the immense chronological 

importance, and the absolute merits of his plays, appear to me still 

strangely overlooked. Partly, no doubt, this is due to the grossly 

imperfect text of Fairholt's edition, by which alone they have been 

known to the modern world. Until now his works have never 

been collected; and the present is actually the first attempt at 

a thorough critical and explanatory edition of the earliest novel 

in the language and the most famous of Elizabethan books. To 

this we must now turn, leaving the dramatic works for discussion in 

the second volume.

EUPHUES 

THE TEXT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 

THE difficulty of determining the text and bibliography of 

Euphues is much enhanced by the distribution of the earliest copies 

between the three great libraries, those of Oxford, Cambridge, and the 

British Museum; and the task must have been much longer, and 

its results less certain, but for the courtesy of the committee of the 

Hampstead Public Library, who have allowed me free use, for 

the purposes of this edition, of the copy of the late Professor Morley, 

which I was able to carry about and collate with all others, in addition 

to my transcript of the text of A. The question is further 

complicated by the loss, in some of the surviving copies, of titlepage 

or colophon which might have afforded direct evidence of their 

date, and also by the contradictory reports of previous bibliographers. 

My own hope that I have placed it at last upon a stable basis is 

grounded on a thorough collation of the text of almost every 

accessible undated copy, and on so close and full an examination 

of the one or two early copies not so collated as leaves me in no 

doubt to which edition they belong: and I have some trust that 

those who follow me through the ensuing pages will feel able to 

accept my decision. 

Perhaps the most decisive method of determining the number of 

editions is the difference in the precise position of the signatures 

under the words of the text above, a test suggested by Mr. F. Madan 

of the Bodleian Library when my work was already far advanced, but 

one which thoroughly confirms the results previously attained. For 

the order of the editions, where dates are either lacking or identical, 

there is no test like the presence or absence of unquestionable 

emendations, whether of wording or of punctuation, which persist 

through all later editions of known date ; supplemented by the 

presence or absence of similarly persistent corruptions. Spelling 

is of little use. In the age of Elizabeth, even more than in that 

of Mr. Weller, it depended upon the taste and fancy of the speller; 

and the collation of the Euphues texts over and over again suggests 

that the compositor was sometimes setting up his type from dictation 

G 2

84 EUPHUES: TEXT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 

rather than following a previous edition with his eye, though doubtless 

the. two methods would constantly alternate \ 

Five lists have been made within the past century: (i) that of 

Malone, a rough memorandum in manuscript, bound in his copy 

of Euphues (M 1 ) in the Bodleian Library (Malone 713). (2) That 

in Lowndes' Bibliographical Manual. (3) That in Mr. W. C. Hazlitt's 

Handbook, 1867, supplemented by additions made in the four 

volumes of his Collections, published in 1876, 1882, 1887, and 1889. 

(4) That of Professor Arber, on pp. 28-29 of his reprint of Euphues, 

1868. (5) That of Dr. Landmann, on pp. ix-x of his edition of 

(most of) Part I, 1887. All five have, of course, been carefully considered 

in compiling my own. Malone's list is given in a note below 2 . 

All the editions enumerated by Hazlitt find a place in my list except 

his (a) of Part I, and his (a) and undated (c) of Part II. These 

three are mentioned in his Handbook ; but in view of the large number 

of quite early editions of either Part which my collation enables 

me clearly to establish, I am unwilling to admit, without seeing them, 

another edition of each Part, of the dates 1579 and 1580 respectively. 

I give their titles, however, as reported by Mr. Hazlitt, in 

a note below 3 , together with a statement of the differences they 

1 Instances of such aural errors are:—205 1. 34(C), 'brake' for 'breake'; 207 

I. 11 (1623), 'sonne by the fire* for ' sire' (the compositor mistaking ' sonne' for 

' sunne'); voL ii. p. 44 1. 17,' indution' for 4 induction'; p. 76 1. 10 (H),' cruelly' 

for' truely'; p. 93 1. 25,' liketh' for ' lyteth '; p. 129 1. 23,' restoritie * for' restoratiue'; 

p. 1651. 30, 4 thing ' for ' ring '; vol. i. 3141. 22,' Straconicus ' for' Stratonicus'; 

and a large number of other classical names, 198 1. 24, 'Pyrothus' for 

'Pirithous'; 262 1. 18, ' Archidamius'; vol. ii. p. 97 1. 30, 'Procustes'; p. 197 

II. 31-2, ' Atchates' and 'Nausicla.' 

3 Malone's list:—' Lillys Euphues or Anatomy of Wit, etc.: 

1579, 2 edit 8 

1580, both parts—3 d ed. of Euph. and first of Eup. and his Eng. 

1581-1588 

1595 1623 

1605, both pts. 1626 [I know nothing of this ed.—ED.] 

16o6 (1630-1631) 

1617 I 1636, both pts. 

10 ed 8 at least beside tnat of i 8t pt in 79—probably more.* 

8 Titles of editions given by Hazlitt which I do not accept:— 

Pt. I. (a) EVPHVES. THE ANATOMY OF WIT. Verie pleasaunt for all 

Gentlemen to read, and most necessarie to remember: wherein are contained the 

delights that Wit followeth in his youth by the pleasantnesse of loue, and the 

happinesse that he reapeth in age by the perfectnesse of Wisedome. By Iohn 

Lyly Master of Arte. Oxon. 

[Colophon] Imprinted at London by Thomas East, for Gabriell Cawood 

dwelling in Paules Churchyard. 1579. [4t0, black letter. First Edition, 

of which no copy having the title-page has come under notice. Unseen by 

all bibliographers.] {Handbook, 1807.) 

A glance at the title of my A [1578, Xmas] (below, p. 106) will show that it is 

not identical with this edition given by Hazlitt, from which it differs in the spelling 

of eleven words in the title, in the omission of the word 'that' before 'he

EDITIO PRINCEPS—TWO COPIES 85 

present from Jhe titles of those which I recognize. I cannot but 

think that a closer examination of them, if they were traceable, 

would reveal their identity with one or other of the latter. In regard 

to (t) his report of it is merely as follows :—' Imprinted at London 

by Thomas East for Gabriell Cawood, n. d. 4to, black letter.' 

This looks like a hasty jotting taken in some sale-room, perhaps from 

an imperfect copy; and is not, in any case, definite or full enough 

to warrant its admission to a separate place on my list. 

The true editio princeps seems to have been first recognized by 

Dr. Sinker, librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, among the 

books belonging to that foundation. In article 547 of his catalogue 

of those books, 1885, he clearly shows that this undated copy 

lacks certain passages which appear in all other editions, and rightly 

infers that it precedes them. But he did not collate it with the early 

copies in the British Museum; and so in 1887 Dr. Landmann, 

ignorant apparently of Dr. Sinker's catalogue, made the same discovery 

of the absence of certain passages from the undated copy 

(C. 40, d. 38) in the Museum, and adduced additional reasons for 

referring it to the editio princeps, to which it undoubtedly belongs. 

To compensate me for the loss of a discovery which awaited the first 

collator, I am able to prove, in regard to the First Part, that the 

second undated copy in the Trinity Library, perhaps unique, is of 

the second edition; that the Morley copy of 1579, from which 

Professor Arber printed under the impression that it was of the first, 

is in reality of the third edition; that the Malone copy in the 

reapeth.' and in having no colophon and no date. Hazlitt's title again, so far as 

it goes, differs from that of T in the spelling of nine words, and in the insertion 

of ' that' before ' he reapeth,' and of ' Oxon'; and it differs in just the same 

respects from that of M. 

Pt. II. (a) EUPHUES AND His ENGLAND. Containing his voyage and aduentures 

myxed with sundry pretie Discourses of honest Loue, the Discription of 

the Countrey, the Court, and the manners of that Isle. Delightfull to be read, 

and nothing hurtfull to be regarded: wher-in there is small offence by lightnesse 

giuen to the wise and lesse occasion of loosenes proferred to the wanton. By 

John Lyly, Maister of Arte. Imprinted at London for Gabriell Cawood dwelling 

m Paules Church-yard. 1580. [4t0, black letter. An Edition unknown to bibliographers.] 

(Handbook, 1867.) 

This title differs from those of my MAB (given pp. 115-6, and identical save that 

MA spell ' wher-in ' and B 'wherein') (1) in having no H before ' Euphues' and 

' By,' no ornament before 'Imprinted/no comma after 'aduentures,' 'wise' and 

Cawood'; (2) in having a capital instead of a small d in ' Discourses' and ' Discription,' 

and a capital instead of a small c in 'Countrey'; (3) in having two 

l's at the end of ' Delightfull,' and only one f in ' proferred,' and in spelling 

'John' instead of 'Iohn'; (4) in not having ' Commend it, or amend it' 

I cannot but think that these differences are mere slips of Mr. Hazlitt or his 

printer; and that his Part I (a) is identical with my M (the third edition), and 

his Part II (a) with my M or A (the first or the second edition).


Bodleian, supposed by Arber and Landmann to be of a different 

edition to the Morley copy, is in reality of this same third edition; 

that the two undated copies of Part I, bound both at the Bodleian 

and the British Museum with Part II of 1597, are of distinct though 

neighbouring editions, the Bodleian copy being of i595(?), the 

Museum copy of 1597(7); and that the modernized octavo edition 

of 1718 is merely a re-issue, with a fresh title-page, of the Euphues 

and Lucilla of 1716. 

In regard to the Second Part, I am able to confirm Professor 

Arber's belief that the Morley copy is of the editio princeps, 1580; 

but I find that two other copies of the same date in the Bodleian 

represent a second and third edition respectively. Further, the 

copy of 1613, asserted by Arber to exist in the Bodleian, is in reality 

of 1609, agreeing exactly in the position of signatures and in other 

test-points with the 1609 edition in the British Museum (see 'Titles 

and Colophons,' p. 118) 1. The Bodleian catalogue described it as of 

[1613 ?]: as a matter of fact the date on the title-page has been cut 

away by the binder. Indeed, the existence at all of an edition of 

Part II of 1613 seems to me somewhat doubtful. It rests on 

the simple entry in Lowndes' Manual of '1613 Both Parts,' and 

on that in Hazlitt's Collections', ii. 372, of l Evphves, and his England 

. . . At London. Printed for William Leake, dwelling in Pauls 

church-yard, at the signe of the Holy-ghost. 1613. 4 0 , black letter, 

A-Ee in fours,' a title which may be merely copied from the Bodleian 

copy with the mutilated date. Lowndes, however, is accurate 

in his mention of ' Both Parts' in other editions; and Leake, 

who had published both Parts separately in 1605, and both again 

separately in 1606, may well enough have done so yet again in 1613; 

so I accord it a place in my list. 

Before giving my list it will be best to bring forward evidence for 

the statements just made. 

I. That A is the ' editio princeps' is shown— 

(1) By the absence from the title-page of the words 'Corrected 

and Augmented,' which appear on that of every other edition. 

(2) By the absence of the apologetic address ' To the Gentlemen 

Schollers,' which appears in all other editions, and evidently has 

reference to the reception the book has already met with. 

1 It is a somewhat singular coincidence that a copy of Part II in the British 

Museum (G. 10438, 1-3), professing to be of 1631, also proves on examination to 

be of 1609, with mounted title only from the ed. of 1631,

MALONE AND MORLEY COPIES 87 

(3) By the absence from the text of the passages enumerated 

under T (Titles, Colophons, &c, pp. 107-8), passages which appear 

in every other edition, amounting to about five pages, and bearing 

distinctly the character of author's improvements. 

(4) By the wording of the fourth sentence in the address ' To the 

Gentlemen Readers'—as to which see below under T (pp. 90-1). 

(5) By the existence in A of a few misprints, and a great many 

errors of punctuation, corrected in all other editions. The misprints 

are given, as they occur, in the textual footnotes. 

II. That the Malone and Morley copies are of the same edition. 

Professor Arber, from whose fruitful toil in the field of our older 

literature there can be few students who have not reaped a benefit, 

made in his reprint of Euphues (1868) a mistake which becomes 

obvious to one with opportunities of more leisurely collation. Misled 

by the loss of the title-page, by the date 1579 of the colophon, 

and by the absence of the address to the Gentlemen Scholars, he 

regarded the Morley copy as of the first edition; and asserted 

(p. 30 of his reprint) that the Malone copy in the Bodleian is of the 

second (1) because its title-page bears 'Corrected and Augmented.' 

(2) Because it has affixed to it at the end the address to the Gentlemen 

Scholars, alluding to effects produced by the book. (3) Because 

' the type on the reverse of folio 90 is somewhat differently set up.' 

I have to point out that while (1) and (2) are arguments against the 

Malone copy being of the first edition, they are of no force to prove 

it of the second; though the position of the Address at the end 

rather than the beginning of the book seems at first to support 

a supposition I have felt bound on other grounds to reject. [See 

below, p. 90, under the discussion of T, of whose existence Professor 

Arber seems not to have been aware.] To the third 

argument I must oppose a simple negative. Folio 90 is the last 

(remaining) leaf of the Morley copy, its verso containing the conclusion 

of the tale, the printer East's device of a horse, and the colophon 

dated 1579. The closest examination of this page in the two 

copies placed side by side reveals to my younger eyes not the 

minutest point of difference in any respect; and this is confirmed by 

the results of my comparison of them throughout the book. I find the 

two copies to agree exactly in every smallest detail in which I have 

compared them—e. g. (1) in the exact position of fifteen observed signatures 

(given under Titles, Colophons, &c, p. 109: see also p. 89,


where the position of several can be contrasted with that of the 

same signatures in T). (2) In the single mistake of pagination 

by which fol. 79 is numbered '97.' (3) In the following eleven 

instances of the mis-spelling 'Epuhues' in the running-title, a misspelling 

which occurs nowhere else in either copy—fols. 45V, 53V, 

54V, 6iv, 62V, 70V, 77r, 78r, 851', 86r, 8gr (note especially on 45V 

the double mis-spelling ' Epuhues to Philuatus'). (4) In fifty-eight 

instances of the substitution of £ for E in the running-title, a substitution 

occurring nowhere else in either copy. (5) In the following 

six misprints confined to these two copies (and, of course, any 

others extant of the same edition)—p. 184 1. 14 'indicent' for 

'incident'; p. 216 1. 9 'ducourse' for 'discourse'; p. 216 1. 27 

' seanoned' for ' seasoned'; p. 222 1. 3 'staunger' for ' straunger'; 

p. 259 I.17 'appoinment' for 'appointment'; p. 292 1. 27 the 

' it' has the t turned in both. (6) In the exact correspondence in 

every detail of spelling, punctuation, and arrangement of type of 

four pages taken at random, viz. fols. 18r, 40 v, 49 V, and 79 V. (7) 

In the exact correspondence of the two copies in every point which 

has been made the subject of a footnote in this edition. The following 

readings peculiar to them may serve as examples : p. 1841. n 

'al his honest' for 'al in honest'; p. 209 1. 2 'faire' for 'fairer'; 

p. 209 1. 20 'hard' for 'heard'; p. 211 1. 12 'countenuaunce' for 

'continuaunce'; p. 216 1. 34 'a woemen' for 'a woman'; p. 235 

In 'affectually' for 'effectually'; p. 239 1. 23 'yt' for 'y e '; 

p. 247 1. 2 'as clocke' for 'as a clock'; p. 310 1. 1 ' Euphues and 

Eubulus'; p. 286 1. 4 ' was this ' for ' is this '; besides the following 

shared by these two copies with T only, pp. 184 11.14-5, 188 1.14, 

203 1. 33, 209 11. 12-3, 212 1. 9, 216 1. 35, 270 1. 36, 271 1.13, 285 

1. 22, 298 1. 5. 

In no single point, in fact, can I discern the smallest difference 

between the two copies. I am convinced that they are of the same 

—the third—edition; and that the Morley copy has lost the two 

leaves at the end (the first signed H) which in the Malone copy contain 

the address to the Gentlemen Scholars, and also the four (not 

five) leaves at the beginning containing title, Epistle Dedicatory, and 

address 'To the Gentlemen Readers.' The signature of the first 

remaining leaf, on which the tale commences, is B; and there seems 

no reason to suppose that the introductory matter occupied either 

more or less space than the four leaves of sig. A, as in the other 

early editions. I have, therefore, collated the perfect copy, the

TRINITY COLLEGE SECOND COPY 89 

Malone, and not the Morley (for Part I), except in regard to every 

footnote. 

III. That T is of the SecondEdition, and M {both copies) of the Third. 

For the place of Second Edition two candidates were indicated 

by the examination first made: M on the one hand, T on the other. 

M is dated in the colophon as 1579; T is undated, or rather the 

last two leaves containing the colophon, which probably was dated, 

are missing from this copy in Trinity College. 

The close connexion of M and T is shown (1) by the similarity 

of collation. Signature and pagination alike agree, down to the 

single error of paging fol. 79 as '97 '; and the number of lines and 

words on any given page is the same. (2) Both emend many 

misprints or errors of A, while both lack many further corrections 

found in all other editions. 

The distinction between them is shown (1) by the difference in 

the precise position of the signatures under the words in the text 

above, e. g.:— 

E lies 

O „ 

H „ 

M „ 

N „ 

Q „ 

(inT 

" 

» 

" 

" 

" 

) under 

" 

" 

" 

" 

" 

ld t 

hi 

hy 

eak 

ith 

nsi 

(in M) under 

" " 

9 9) 

" " 

" 

9 " 

ta 

iue 

n t 

rea 

nde 

con 

in 

" 

" 

" 

" 

would take 

giue him 

in thy 

creake 

minde with 

consideration 

(2) By occasional slight differences in the spacing of the words, 

and rarely by the commencement of a new paragraph in M and not 

in T, e. g. the first three letters of ' Cornelia' (p. 239 1. 22) come, in T, 

at the end of 1. 21 of fol. 36 recto, while m M the complete word commences 

1. 22; and in 1. 23 M commences a new paragraph with 

'As for changing,' while T runs these words on with the preceding. 

(3) By a great variety in the type used for E in the running-title. 

Both freely substitute £ for E, but not always on the same leaves. 

And further, the mis-spelling ' Epuhues,' found eleven times in M, 

only occurs once in T, on fol. 53 verso. 

(4) By the absence from T of the six misprints of M enumerated 

in discussing it above (p. 88 (5)): by the presence in T of the 

following four misprints absent from M—'Garpes' for 'grapes,' 

p. 192 1. 1, 'conclusiion.' p. 216 1. 12, 'pleople,' p. 271 1. 2, 'remembrsunce,' 

p. 280 1. 6 : and by the other differences given in 

a comparative table below (pp. 91-3). 

T and M are therefore of distinct, but closely connected editions.


Which is the earlier? I have decided for T. From isolated misprints 

no inference as to priority can be drawn; nor do the eleven 

instances of 'Epuhues' in M, as against one such instance in T, 

argue T the later copy, for by such reasoning, A, which presents 

no instance, would be later than either. Such a mistake is as likely 

to be multiplied as decreased in succeeding editions, as is the case 

with the capital £ of the running-title, of which A presents only 

four cases, against sixty-three in T and fifty-eight in M. Two points 

are of importance as bearing on the question. The first is the 

position of the address to the Gentlemen Scholars. In both it is 

printed in roman type, and occupies the whole of one leaf, signed 

H, and a portion of the recto of a second, being followed by a tailpiece. 

But while M places it at the end, T inserts it just before 

the tale, immediately after the address to the Gentlemen Readers; 

and in all the other editions it occupies the same position. This 

agreement of T with C and the rest inclined me at first to believe 

it later than M ; yet the position of the Address in T might be due 

to a mistake in stitching the sheets; and, even if rightly placed in T, 

it might be transferred to the end in M by an afterthought of Lyly, 

who recognized its intermediate character between the two Parts— 

the Second of which was just about to appear—and also feared to prejudice 

the reader by excuses made in the forefront of the tale. 

I acknowledge, however, that its reappearance at the beginning in C 

and all later editions, makes rather for the priority of M. (See footnote 

on it in loco, p. 324). 

The second point that bears upon it is the wording of the fourth 

sentence in the address to the Gentlemen Readers, lost from the 

Morley copy (M 2 ), but to be seen in the Malone (M 1 ). 

(Christmas (AM 1 )) 

' We commonly see the booke that at • Midsomer (T) j- lyeth bound 

Easter (C rest) 

[Easter (AM 

y to be broken in the 

1 ) 

on the Stacioners stall, at J Christmasse (T) 

(Christmasse (C rest)] 

Haberdasshers shop, which Sith it is the order of proceeding, I am con- 

Iwinter (AM 1 ) ) 

Summer (T) I to haue my doings read for a toye, that in 

Summer (C rest)] 

(sommer (AM 1 ) ] 

they may be ready for trash.' 

{ Winter (T) } 

(Winter (C rest)]

'T' BELONGS TO SECOND EDITION 91 

It will be seen that M 1 agrees with A, that T alters the word 

in all four places, and that C (abundantly proved later than T by 

the collation) alters the word once more in the first place only. 

The alterations were made, of course, to suit the altered date of 

issue in successive editions. The natural inference may seem to 

be that M is prior to T; yet we may equally well suppose that M 

represents a second change of all four words, a return, in fact, to the 

wording of A to suit the return of Christmas, and that the real order 

of the editions is :— 

A 'Christmas,' 1578 (undated). 

T 'Midsomer,' 1579 (no date surviving). 

M 'Christmas,' 1579 (colophon dated 1579). 

C 'Easter,' 1580 (colophon dated 1580). 

My later belief in the priority of T to M is the result of collating 

the T text throughout, a collation made after that of all the rest. 

The differences between them are not numerous, but significant. 

In almost every case where they differ T is found agreeing with A, 

and M agreeing with the later C; and if it be urged that this may 

merely indicate that T was printed from A rather than from M, 

I answer that the immense number of corrections which T shares 

with M proves, either that M was printed from T (as I believe), 

or that a copy of M lay before the printer of T, in which latter case 

T would surely always have followed M with its autorial authority 

as (ex hypothesi) the first ' corrected and augmented' edition, rather 

than hark back to A as it so often does. I will, then, ask the 

reader's attention to the following comparative tables, reminding him 

that revision may be indicated quite as much by an amended punctuation 

as by words :— 

(1) AT. Mrest 1 . 

P. 181 1. 5 (insertion of comma at ' wisedome '): 

' a greater show of a pregnant wit, ' a greater shew of a pregnant wit, 

then perfect wisedome in a thing then perfect wisedome, in a thing 

of sufficient excellencie, to vse of sufficient excell6cie, to vse 

superfluous eloquence.' superfluous eloqugce.' (G drops 

comma at * excellScie.') 

P. 189 1. 32; ' Coll/quintida.' 'Colbquintida'M); 'Coloquintida' 

(C rest). 

1 Where the emendation does not persist till 1636, its exact limits are stated at 

the side.

92 EUPHUES; 

AT. 

P. 194 1.1: 

' neuer Stoycke so strict, nor lesuite 

so supersticious, neyther Votarie 

so deuout, but would' &c. 

P. 205 1.10 (stop and cap.): 

' for thy sweete sake. Whose witte 

hath bewitched me.' &c. 

P. 206 1. 34: 

' lost with an Apple: If hefynde' &c. 

P. 209 1. 6: ' wert ' 

P. 211 1.12 : 

' continuaunce' (T—in one of the 

augmentations) 

P. 218 I.31: ' sterue' 

P. 220 I.21: ' in an agony' 

P. 230 1.26: ' partner ' 

P. 239 1. 33: 

P. 240 1. 13 : 

P. 250 I.29: 

P. 275 1.19 : 

P. 264 1. 27 : 

P. 270 1.22 : 

P. 2711.35: 

' as for angling ' 

'serueth' 

' shooteth into' 

' Panathaenea' 

' shoulde conceiue' 

' cycle' 

' brought to Apelles the' 

P. 276 1.17: 

' is in continuall meditation ' 

P. 276 1.30: ' Epiminides ' 

TEXT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Mrest 1 . 

'neuer Stoicke in preceptes so strict, 

neither any in lyfe so precise, 

but woulde' &c. 

' for thy sweete sake: Whose wyt 

hath' &c. (M). 

'for thy sweete sake: whose wit 

hath'&c. (C). 

'for thy sweete sake, whose wyt 

hath ' &c. (GE rest). 

' lost with an Apple, if he frnde ' &c. 

(G'apple, if), 

'wer' (MCG). 

' countenuaunce' (M); ' coutenaunce' 

(CGE 1 ); ' countenance ' 

(E 2 rest), 

'starue' (M-1613). 

' in agony' (MC). 

'partaker' (M); 'pertener* (C); 

'partener' (G). 

'as' omitted (MC). 

'serued' 

' shooteth in' 

'Panthsenea' (M-i6i3), 'Panthenaea' 

(1617-36). 

' coulde conceiue' (M-1613). 

'Cicle(M); ' sickle ' (C rest). 

' brought Apelles the' (MCG); 

' brought Apelles to the' (E rest). 

' in' omitted. 

' Epaminides ' (MC) — all for 

' Epaminondas.' 

P. 286 1. 4: 'is this ' ' was this' (M); 'was thus' (C rest). 

P. 2861.24: 'the instructing of youthe' 'the instruction of youth/ 

P. 302 1.6: ' thy transgressions' ' his transgressions' (M-E 1 ). 

1 Where the emendation or corruption does not persist till 1636, its exact limits 

are stated at the side.

MALONE'S AND MORLEY'S ARE THIRD ED. 93 

(2) A. 

P. 193 l22: 'Fiochilus' 

P. 194 l26 (stops): 

' The Birde Fauras, 

hath a great voyce 

but a small body, 

the' &c. 

P. 205 1.30: ' Mylke' 

P. 210 I.7: 'decerneth' 

P. 222 11. 8-10 : 

' he a stranger,... he 

a starter,' 

P. 315 1. 10: 'Arbiter' 

T. 

' Throchilus' 

'The Birde Taurus, 

hath a great voyce 

but a small body, 

the' &c. 

'Milke' 

' descerneth' 

' he a straunger:... he 

a starter,' 

' Arbiterer' 

P. 286 I.32: 'NotormV 'Anotomie' 

MCGh 

'Trochilus' (M rest). 

1 The Birde Taurus 

hath a great voyce, 

but a smal body: 

the' &c. 

'milke' 

'discerneth' (M rest). 

' he a straunger:... he 

a starter:' 

'arbiterer' (M); 'arbitrer 

, (C-l6i3). 

' Anatomie' 

Against these instances, from which an intermediate position for 

T between A and M would be inferred, I can only find two which 

seem to make for M's priority, viz. p. 300 1. 26 ' tourne mee' (AM), 

while TC rest omit 'mee'; and p. 310, where the heading of the 

letter appears as ' Euphues to Ferardo' in A, a mistake corrected 

to ' Euphues and Eubulus' in M, and i Euphues to Eubulus' in 

TC rest: yet in this latter the ' and' of M is quite as likely to be 

a slip made in printing from T, as an original correction of A. 

If my decision is correct, it is to T rather than to M that all that 

large body of additions and corrections, common to both, must.be 

assigned as original. 

IV. That C is the Fourth Edition, 

The place of C as the fourth is established by the date 1580 

at the end of the colophon, by the number of its corrections of TM, 

and the number of errors it repeats which find correction later, 

I have satisfied myself of the exact correspondence of the 1580 

copy in the University Library at Cambridge with the copy of the 

same date at Oxford. In the position of the signatures, in the 

headpieces and tailpieces, in the tailing-off of the text at certain 

breaks in the novel, and in many other test-points the two copies 

exactly resemble each other; the single point of difference which 

I note being the correction by the Cambridge copy of the error 

'that but' (p. 290 1. 15) of the Oxford copy. Occurring at a place 

where the text is tailed off it must have caught the printer's eye and


been corrected, when some copies (including the Oxford one) had 

already passed the press. 

V. That the undated copies of Part I bound with Part II 1597 

in the Bodleian (E 1 ) and British Museum (E 2 ) respectively, are of 

different editions (1595 ? and 1597 ?). 

The distinction is most clearly shown by the numerous differences 

of reading recorded in the footnotes : but the following more external 

marks will serve to establish it:— 

(1) On the title-page E 1 spells ' contained' and ' Churchyarde,' 

E 2 ' contayned' and ' Churchyard.' 

(2) The headpiece to the Epistle Dedicatory in E 1 represents two 

snails looking at a woman's face; the corresponding headpiece in E 2 

has a jar with leaves and flowers. 

(3) E l prints the address to the Gentlemen Scholars in black 

letter ; E 2 in ordinary romans. 

(4) The position of the signatures, e.g.:— 

E 1 E2 

C. lies under eu in euidendy under den in euidently 

D. „ „ ashf „ bashfulnesse „ hful „ bashfulnesse 

E. „ „ st t ;, thinkest thou „ thou „ thinkest thou 

G. „ „ a st „ a starter „ t he „ yet he 

L, „ „ no „ no „ ns „ canst 

S. „ „ uere „ conquered „ he d „ the deuill 

In the number of words in a page, and in the type and form 

of the title-page, the two copies present an exact resemblance; while, 

further, both resemble Part II, of 1597 in the type and form of the 

title-page, in the compression of the text of the whole work, and in 

being printed by * I. Roberts' (' I. R.' in Part II, 1597) ' for Gabriell 

Cawood.' The adoption of a smaller type than hitherto for the 

running-title—a type used for the same in all later editions—and 

the disappearance there of £ as alternative to E and of other 

irregularities, also the uniform employment of Arabic notation for 

the signatures, are points in which both these undated editions 

of Part I, might seem to be later than Part II, 1597, which exhibits 

the old irregularities; but at this date the two Parts were still printed 

separately—one system of signature continued through both is not 

found before 1617—and Part II might continue to copy the irregu. 

larities of its earlier editions, even after uniformity had been introduced 

in Part I, Both Parts are transferred in the Stationers'

THREE EDITIONS OF PART II, 1580 95 

Register from ' Master Cawood Deceased' to ' Master Leake' under 

date July 2, 1602; and bibliographers make no mention of any 

edition of either Part between 1597 and that date. Supposing, then, 

the later of these two undated editions to be issued in 1597 as 

a companion volume to Part II of that date, the complete collation 

clearly indicates the British Museum copy (E 2 ) as of that later one. 

It contains all the corrections of E 1 , and adds many of its own. 

In regard to the date of E 1 , it may possibly have been issued as 

a companion volume to the edition of Part II, 1592, mentioned by 

Hazlitt (Colls, i. 270): but Malone mentions an edition of Part I, 

1595; and partly to avoid swelling the list on uncertain grounds, 

I assign it, hypothetically, to that year. If the copy Malone saw 

was dated, such date may perhaps have been added in the course 

of the impression. 

For the practical identity of the editions of 1716 and 1718 see 

' Titles and Colophons/ pp. 113-4. 

Turning now to Part II we have four surviving accessible copies 

bearing on their title-page the date 1580: the Morley copy (M), 

two in the Bodleian (A and B), and one in the University Library 

at Cambridge. In spite of their extraordinary similarity close 

examination shows these to represent three different editions, and 

not merely separate issues, the Cambridge copy being of the same 

edition as the later copy (B) in the Bodleian. The collation of M, 

the earliest, differs altogether from that of A and B, which is the 

same (both end on sig. L1 4, fol. 132 recto). The title-page of B 

differs from that of M and A in spelling ' wherein' for ' wherin'; 

and there is a further trifling difference in the setting of the border 

of the title-page, the little horns at the inner and upper extremities 

of the border at the bottom pointing in different directions in the 

case of all three editions. These, and the like minute discrepancies, 

find abundant confirmation in the position of the signatures, and the 

varying readings of the text.

(i) Signatures:— 

POSITION OF SIGS. IN M. 

B. comes under 

c. 

D. 

E. „ 

F. 

G. 

H. 

I- 

K. 

IM 

ero 

by 

the 

de 

ust 

tby 

exp 

Im 

are 

bow 

in 

' 

" 

" 

" 

" 

venterous 

by 

the 

towardes 

must 

wit by 

expedient 

I must 

are 

bowels 

POSITION OF SIGS. IN A. 

B. comes under the they 

c. 

" re neere 

D. 

" whi which 

EL " bu but 

F. 

" Lio Lion 

G.j. " esta estate 

H. i. " e en be enuyed 

I. " oth nothing 

K. 

" kn knowe 

L. 

rua seruantes 

" 

POSITION OF SIGS. IN B. 

B. comes under ,th 

C. „ eer 

D. „ rest 

E. " e, 

F. „ Lio 

G. (sic) „ ean 

H. (sic) „ u s 

I. 

be 

K. 

we 

L. „ ant 

in 

" 

pleasure, t 

neere 

desirest 

wisdome, 

Lion, 

meane 

thou shalt 

be 

knowe 

seruantes 

(2) The following comparative table will, I hope, serve to justify the order I assign to the three editions :- 

Fol and line Page and I. 

of M. of vol. ii. 

M. 

A. B. 

IT v. 1. 9 

ITiiv. 1. 10 

ITiiiv. 1. 15 

1 r. 1. 8 

2 r. 1. 17 

9v. 1. 6 

9 v. L 26 

13 r. 1. n 

8 I.29 ' I am content that your Dogges 

lye in your laps : so Euphues 

may be in your hands, that 

when' &a 

10 I.17 * If you be wronge (which cannot 

be done without wrong)' 

12 1.6 ' de-defende' 

13 1.6 ' use this perswasion to his friend' 

14 1. 36 ' lowd vsurer' 

26 1. 2 'But he that leaueth his own 

home, is worthy no home' 

26 1. 18 ' there wil • ... no grasse hang 

on heeles of Mercury' 

31 1. 23 ' one simple, and other wilie,' 

(the colon at' laps' changed to a comma in A rest) 

'.. • wronge wrong)' .. wrunge ..... wrong)' (BH rest) 

' de-defende' 

' defende' (B rest) 

' perswasion with' &c. (A rest) 

'lewd vsurer' (A-F) 

(the whole line is omitted AB) 

' on the heeles ..' (A rest) 

' one simple, an other wily,' (A rest) 

96 EUPHUES: TEXT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

14 r. 1. 34 33 1. 28 'y n dost me great wrong, .... 

thiking to stop a vain wher 

none opened' 

17 v. 1. 4 38 1. 19 ' so furre hath nature ouercome 

arte' 

17 v. 1. 22 38 1. 24 'good wil towars you ' 

28 r. 1. 12 54 1. 26 ' 1 must craue pardon, if either 

this draught chaunge you, 

vnlesse it be to the better or 

grieue you, except it be for 

greater gaine' 

28 v. I. 34 56 1. I ' Wine, which alwayes drew with 

it . . a desire of women how 

hurtfull both haue bene . . you 

are old enough to beleeue ' 

30 v.!. 4 58 1. 11 ' must nowe begynne' 

32 r. 1. 27 61 1. 6 ' the Poets fained the Muses to 

be women, the Nimphes the 

Goddesse,' 

54 r. 1. 32 94 1. 33 ' I had thought that a wounde 

healing so faire could neuer 

haue bred to a Fistula' 

58v. I.4 101 1. 12 'if I should not prayse them, 

62 r. 1. 12 

63 v. 1. 11 

66 r. 1. 4 

66 r. 1. 20 

66 r. 1. 28 

85 r. 1. 32 

86 r. 1. 33 

115 r. 1. 24 

106 1. 31 

109 1. 3 

112 1. 23 

112 l.37 

113 1.7 

142 1. 8 

H3 1. 30 

187 1. 21 

thou wouldest saye ' &c. 

'colde' 

' lustinesse : He' 

' Thesalay, Aegipt,' 

' Hyphus' 

' desease' 

' salfe' 

' rages' 

' to either desires' 

' thou where none is opened ' (A rest) 

' so farre ' &c. (A rest) 

' good wil towards you ' (A rest) 

(the necessary comma at 'better' is supplied in A-E, H rest) 

(the necessary colon at ' women' is supplied in A rest) 

' must now begin' ' must begin' (B rest) 

'the Poets . . . the Goddesses,' (A rest) 

' could neuer ' could neuer breed ' &c. 

bred ' &c. (B rest) 

' them, then wouldest ' the, the wouldst thou say' 

saye ' &c. &c. (B rest) 

'codle' 'coale' (B rest) 

'lustinesse: He' Mustinesse. He' 

' Thessalia, Aegypt,' (AB) 

' Iphis' (A rest) 

desease' ' disease' (B rest) 

'safe' (A rest) 

' rages' ' iarres' (B rest) 

' to either desires' ' to their desires' (B rest) 

THEIR ORDER 97


TEXT FOLLOWED. 

In the present edition the reader has the text as given in the 

editio princeps of each Part, i.e. A of Part I (December, 1578), and 

M of Part II (spring, 1580: cf. vol. ii. p. 5 1. 24 'not daring to bud 

till the colde were past,' though, no doubt, Lyly is thinking chiefly 

of the opposition at first excited by Part I). 

In the case of the First Part, objections to A as a model exist, no 

doubt, in its lack of the augmentations, in its misprints and errors, 

and its great vagaries of punctuation. But not only has Professor 

Arber already given us a most faithful reprint of the third edition, 

which differs only very slightly from the second, but there attaches, 

as it seems to me, such supreme interest to the first edition of 

a work so famous as Euphues as overrides all other considerations. 

T, too, though it has the augmentations, introduces as many errors 

as it corrects (see ' Titles, Colophons,' &c, p. 107). I have therefore 

followed A, correcting in a very few cases by M while giving A's 

reading below, and reproducing A's spelling (except the long ' s'), and 

A's punctuation save in cases where it was such as to mislead the 

reader and injure the effect of the work. In such cases I have 

adopted the punctuation of the earliest edition which corrected the 

error; but of all the thousands of stops in Part I. A only 161 are 

here corrected, ninety-two of them from M (i.e. practically from T 

where, so far as I have examined, they were first made), sixteen from 

C, thirteen from G, sixteen from E 1 , and the small remainder from 

later editions, with the exception of six made on my own authority. 

For the added passages and the address to the Gentlemen Scholars 

I have followed M, collating T in which they first appeared and 

which only differs in a single case. But I have further collated 

every word of the first five editions, i.e. A [1578], T [1579], M 

1579, C 1580, G 1581; and also of E 1 1595?, E 2 1597?, and F 1607, 

i. e. of all the other accessible editions issued in the lifetime of the 

author, reporting every variant in the footnotes, even of orthography 

where it might affect the sense or seemed philologically important. 

The two intervening editions, those of 1585 and 1587, were not 

accessible to me (nor those of 1605 and 1606); and it is possible, 

therefore, that a large proportion of the very large number of changes 

which appear in E l were first made in 1585 ' or 1587 ; but in any 

1 The character of the echoes of Euphues found in Loves Metamorphosis, the 

first form of which I place c. 1585 or 1586, suggests that Lyly had recently been 

revising his novel.

EDITIONS COLLATED 99 

case the reader has in the footnotes practically every change the text 

underwent in the lifetime of the author, who died in 1606. And, 

further, wherever an emendation, corruption, or omission occurs, 

i.e. for every footnote, I have collated all the five remaining accessible 

editions, down to that of 1636, and report in the notes of its 

persistence or abandonment. The results of all this collation are 

summed up under 'Titles, Colophons,' &c, pp. 106 sqq. 

In regard to Part II, the intrinsic merits of M amply entitle it to 

the choice, apart from its position as the editio princeps. It is far 

more carefully printed than the A of Part I, and I have only found 

it necessary to make in this much longer work sixty-seven alterations 

of the punctuation—twenty-seven from A, one from B, twenty-six 

from E, two from F, eight from H, and only one of the remaining 

three on my own authority. In following M I have embodied a very 

few verbal corrections from A, and collated for every word A and B 

1580, E 1597, F 1606, and H 1609; so that in this case, too, the 

reader has, in the footnotes, the record of every change the text 

underwent in the author's lifetime, with the further record of its 

persistence or abandonment as far as the latest quarto edition, 1636. 

In the very rare case where the text seemed imperatively to require 

the insertion of a word, I have enclosed such word in conical 

brackets ( ) ; I doubt if there are half a dozen such in the whole two 

Parts. 

The labour of all this collation in the case of so long a work has, 

of course, been very great; I trust that this assurance of its performance—which 

can be tested in part by the footnotes—may be held 

sufficient to excuse any later editor from undertaking so heavy a 

task. 

11 2

EUPHUES: TEXT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 

LIST OF EDITIONS 

(All editions down to 1636 are in 4to and black letter; those not personally 

seen are marked with a dagger. Fuller details of those seen will 

befoimd under ' lilies, Colophons] &c., pp. 106 sqq.) 

EUPHUES. THE ANATOMY OF WIT. 

' Secundo die Decembris [1578] Gabriell Cawood Licenced vnto him 

the Anotamie of witt Compiled by John Lyllie vnder the hande of the 

bishopp of London . . . xij d .' Stationers' Register, ii. 342 (Arb. Transcript). 

1. A. [1578, Christmas.] ' London for Gabriell Cawood'—n. d. No col. 

A-T4 in fours, except B-E8 in eights. (Br. Mus., press mark C. 40. 

d. 38 ; Trin. Coll. Camb.) 

T. [1579, Mids.] ' London for Gabriell Cawood'—n. d. wanting two 

last leaves. A-z 4 (last remaining leaf) in fours, with two fols. signed 

U inserted before B. (Trin. Coll. Camb.) 

3. M. 1579 

[Christmas]. 

4. C. 1580 

[Easter]. 

M1 . 'London by Thomas East, for Gabriel Cawood'— 

'tit. undat.: col. dat. 1579. A-Aaij in fours, 

followed by two fols. signed U. (Bodleian-—the 

M alone copy.) 

M 2 . Wanting the four leaves of sig. A, and the two 

last leaves signed U, but agreeing in every other 

respect with M 1 . (Hampstead Publ. Libr.—the 

Morley copy.) 

(C 1 . ' London by Thomas East, for Gabriell Cawood'— 

col. dat. 1580. Wanting first five leaves. B ij-Z 4 

in fours. (Bodleian.) 

Perfect copy. Tit. undat. Agrees in every respect 

with C 1 , except that it corrects ' doubt not, that 

but' (p. 290 1.15 ) (fol. 67 verso) to ' doubt not, but 

that.' (Univ. Library, Camb.) 

5. G. 1581. ' London by Thomas East, for Gabriel Cawood'—tit. undat. 

Col. dat. 1581. A-z 4 in fours. (Brit, Mus.—the Grenville copy.) 

*

IOI 

LIST OF EDITIONS 

(All editions down to 1636 are in 4to and black letter; those not personally 

seen are marked with a dagger. Fuller details of those seen will 

be found under ' Titles, Colophons,' &c., pp. 106 sqq.) 

EUPHUES AND HIS ENGLAND. 

' xxiv t0 Jul [1579] Gabriel cawood . Lycenced vnto him vnder ye handes 

of ye wardens ye second part of Euphues vj d .' Stationers' 

Register, ii. 357 (Arb. Transcript). 

1. M. 1580. 'London for Gabriell Cawood . . . 1580.' Wanting two 

last leaves. A-Nn 4 (last remaining leaf) in fours, four leaves 

sig. 1F being inserted between sigs. A and B. (Hampstead Publ. 

Libr.—the Morley copy.) 

2. A. 1580. ' London for Gabriell Cawood . . . 1580.' Col. dat. 1580. 

Wants fol. 32. A-Ll 4 in fours, sig. F inserted between sigs. A and 

B as in preceding : last page blank. (Bodleian.) 

3. B. 1580. 'London for Gabriell Cawood . . . 1580.' A-Ll 4 in fours, 

sig. IT inserted between sigs. A and B as in preceding: last page blank. 

(Bodleian; Univ. Libr. Camb.) 

t4. C. 1581. 'London for Gabriel Cawood ... 1581.' " Bl. lett. 4to. 

140 leaves " (Hazlitt, Hdbk.). "Ll in fours, but should be only Gg, 

Kk follg. sig. Ee by mistake" (Lowndes). Probably the, mistake 

lay in signing Aa-Dd in eights; while at Ee a return was made to 

fours, and then the last eight leaves were signed with the letters Kk, 

Ll, which would have been reached had no irregularity occurred. 

Continuous signature by fours, omitting as usual J, v, w, and inserting 

IF, brings Ll 4 on the 140th leaf. 

+5. G. 1582. 'London for Gabriel Cawood . . . 1582'; "wanting eight 

leaves [nine?] corresponding to pp. 362-363, 463-478" (Arber, 

pp. 29, 209: this copy lately belonged to Mr. H. Pyne). "A4 

leaves, IF 4 leaves, B-li in fours" (Hazlitt, Hdbk. Adds.) i.e. 

presumably Hazlitt saw the Pyne copy lacking the 8 concluding 

leaves (sigs. Kk, Ll).


t6. D. 1585. ' London . . by Thomas East for Gabriel ,Cawood'—tit. 

undat. Col. dat. 1585. "410, black letter, z in fours" (Hazlitt, Hdbk. 

Adds.). Also merit, by Arber as belonging to Mr. H. Pyne. 

+7. 1587. 'London . . by Thomas East for Gabriel Cawood'—tit. undat. 

Col. dat. 1587. "4to, black letter, z in fours " (Hazlitt, Hdbk, (d)—also 

mentioned by Lowndes). 

8. E 1 . [1595 ?] 'London . . . by L. Roberts for Gabriell Cawood'—n. d. No 

col. A-U 4 in fours, last page blank. (Bodleian.) 

9. E 2 . [1597?] ' London, .. by I. Roberts for Gabriell Cawood'—n. d. No 

col. A-U 4 in fours, last page blank. (Br. Mus.) 

" 2 Julij [1602] Master Leake Entred for his copies these 13 copies 

or bookes folowinge which Did apperteine to master Cawood 

Deceased vj s vj d [fourth and fifth among them being] 

4 The Anatomie of witt compiled by John Lyllie. 5 The second 

parte of Euphues." Stationers' Register, iii. 210 (Arb. Transcript). 

+lO. 1605. " Home Tooke, 444, date 1605, with Golden Legacy, 1605" 

[i. e. bound with Lodge's Rosalynd, &c] (Lowndes). Also mentioned 

in Malone's list. 

til. 1606. l London . .for William Leake . . . 1606.' " 4to bl. lett., u in 

fours, last page blank" (Hazlitt, Hdbk. (f)). Also mentioned Cat. of 

books added to Library of Congress, Washington, " 80 1 (a-u)." Also 

Lowndes ' 1606, 4to. Both parts.' 

12. F. 1607. ''London, .for Willia?n Leake . . . 1607.' Unpaged, no 

col. A-U 4 in fours, last page blank. (Br. Mus.) 

13. 1613. 'London, .for William Leake . . . 1613.' Unpaged, no col. 

A-U 4 in fours, last page blank. (Br. Mus. and Bodleian.) 

" 16° ffebruarii I6I6[-17] Master [William] Barrett Assigned ouer 

vnto him by master Leake and by order of a full Courte all theis 

Copies followinge . . . xiiij S . vizt, [the twelfth item being] Ephewes 

his England, and Anatomy of Witt." Stationers' Register, iii. 603 

(Arb. Transcript). 

14 1 . 1617. 'London by G. Eld, for W. B.. . . 1617.' Unpaged, no col. 

A-K8 in eights. (Br. Mus.; Bodl. (2 copies); Univ. Lib. Camb.) 

"8° Martii 1619[-2o] John Parker. Assigned ouer vnto him with the 

consents Master Barrett, and order of a full Court holden this 

Day all his right in theis Copies following . . . viij S vj d vizt, [the tenth 

item being] Euphues his England, and Anatomy of witt." Stationers' 

Register, iii. 666 (Arb. Transcript). 

1 14-17. Editions of the two Parts printed together and signed continuously.


16., D. 1586. 'London for Gabriel Cawood . . . 1586.' No col. " A 4 

leaves, IT 4 leaves ; B-l i in fours, Kk in eights " (Hazlitt, Hdbk. Adds.; 

also ment. by Arber as belonging to Mr. H. Pyne). 

+7. 1588. 'London for Gabriel Cawood . . . 1588.' Col. undat. " Ll 

in fours " (Hazlitt, Hdbk.; also ment. by Malone ; and Lowndes 

—3 copies). 

t8. 1592. 'London .for Gabriel Cawood . . . 1592.' " Ee in fours" 

(Hazlitt, Colls, i. 270). 

9. E. 1597. ' London, . . . by I. R.for Gabriel! Cawood . . . 1597,' No 

col. A-Ff 2 in fours, 114 leaves. (Br. Mus.; Bodl.; Lib. of Congress, 

Washington.) 

For transfer to W. Leake, see opposite. 

tlO. 1605. ' London, '. . for William Leake . . . 1605'—"4 0 Ee in 

fours " (Hazlitt, Colls, i. 270 ; aJso mentioned by Malone). 

11. F. 1606. 'London, . for William Leake . . . 1606.' No col. ; 

unpaged. A-Ee 4 in fours. (Br. Mus.) 

12. H. 1609. 'London, .for William Leake . . . 1609.' No. col.; unpaged. 

A-Ee 4 in fours. (Br. Mus. two copies, one (G. 10438-1) 

with mounted title of 1631. Bodl., but date has been cut away.) 

tl3. 1613. 'London, . for William Leake . . . 1613.' "A-E e in 

fours" (Hazlitt, Colls, ii. 372 ; also ment. Lowndes). 

For transfer to W. Barrett, see opposite. 

141. 1617. 'London by G. Eld, for W. B. .. . 1617.' No. col.; unpaged. 

L-Aa 8 in eights. R2 is mis-signed s 2 in Brit. Mus. copy, 

but not in the two Bodl. copies. The second of the latter (Douce 

L. 178) is not accompanied by Pt. I. (Br. Mus.; Bodl. (2 copies); 

Univ. Lib. Camb.) 

For transfer to John Parker, see opposite. 

1 14-17. Editions of the two Parts printed together and signed continuously.

EUPHUES: TEXT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 

15. [1623.] 'London by John Beale, for John Parker'—tit. undated. 

Unpaged, no col. A-K 8 in eights. (Br. Mus.; Bodl.; Univ. Libr. 

Camb.; Magd. Coll. Oxf.; Dulwich Coll.) 

+16. 1630. "London, Printed by I. H. and are to be,sold by lames Boler. 

1630. 4to K, in eights" (Hazlitt, Hdbk.; ment. also by Malone 1 , 

and inferable from sigs. L-Aa 8 of Part II, 1630). 

Another issue of the 16th ed. 1631. 'London, Printed by I, H. and 

are to be sold by lames Boler. 1631.' No col., unpaged. A-K8 in 

eights. (Br. Mus.; Bodl.; Trin. Coll. Camb.) 

17. 1636. 'London, Printed by John Haviland. 1636.' No col., unpaged. 

A-K 8 in eights. (Br. Mus.; Bodl.) 

" 4° Septembris predicto 1638. Master Haviland and John Wright 

Assigned ouer vnto them by vertue of a Noate vnder the hand and 

seale of Master Parker and subscribed by Master Mead warden All 

the Estate Right Title and Interest which the said Master Parker 

hath in these Copies and partes of Copies following (vizT.) Saluo Jure 

cujuscunque . . . xxxv 8 [the 16th item being] Ephues his England 

and Anotamy of Witt." Statione?s' Register, iv. 432 (Arb. Iranscript). 

18. 1716. ( Euphues and Lucilla: or the False Friend and Inconstant 

Mistress London .... MDCCXVF 8vo (slightly modernized 

from the original). (Bodl.; Magd. Coll. Oxf.) 

Another issue of No. 18 with fresh title-page. 1718. ( The False 

Friend and Inconstant Mistress . . . London . . . 1718.' 8vo. (Br. 

Mus.) 

19. 1868. 'English Reprints .... Euphues. The Anatomy of Wit. . . 

Edited by Edward Arber F.S.A. . . London, N., 1 October, 1868.' 

(Br. Mus.; Bodl, &c.) 

20. 1887. Englische Sprach- und Literaturdenkmale .... Euphues. The 

Anatomy of Wit . . . edited with introduction and notes by 

Dr. Friedrich Landmann .... Heilbronn .. 1887.' [This edition is 

not complete, omitting the larger portion of ' Euphues and his 

Ephoebus,' and the whole of the discourse ' Euphues and Atheos.'] 

(Brit. Mus. ; Bodl., &c.) 

21. 1902. The present edition. 

1 Malone's rough list also mentions an edition of '1626,' though whether of 

Part I, or Part II, or both, he does not say.


15. 1623. ' London by Lohn Beale for John Parker .. . 1623.' No col.; 

unpaged. L-Aa 8 in eights. (Br. Mus., 2 copies; Bodl.; Univ. Lib. 

Camb.; Advoc. Lib. Edinb.; Dulwich Coll.)—the second Br. Mus. 

copy (12403. a. 27 (2)) is severed from Pt. I and bound with a copy of 

Lodge's Euphucs Golden Legacy; also it lacks the six last leaves.) 

16. 1630. ' Printed at London by J. H. and are to be sold by lames Boler. 

1630.' No col. ; unpaged. L-Aa 8 in eights 1 . (Bodleian.) 

Another issue of the 16th ed. 1631. ' Printed at London by I. H. and 

are to be sold by lames Boler. 1631.' No col.; unpaged. L-Aa 8 in 

eights, the sigs. occupying precisely the same positions as in 1630. 

(Br. Mus.; Trin. Coll. Camb.) 

17. 1636. ' Printed at London by John Haviland. 1636.' No col.; unpaged. 

L-A a 8 in eights. (Br. Mus.; Bodl.) 

18. 1868. ' English Reprints .... Euphues and his England.. . Ed. by 

Edward Arber E.S.A.'— (issued as one work with No. 19 on opposite 

page). (Br. Mus.; Bodl., &c.) 

19. 1902. The present edition. 

1 Hazlitt (Handbook) in regard to this edition of the two Parts of 1630 says 

the signatures are ' separate,' though he reports those of Part II as extending * to 

A a in eights.* But A a could never be reached in eights unless Part II had commenced 

(like the other editions, from 1617-1636) with L.


TITLES, COLOPHONS, AND RESULTS OF COL 

LATION OF THE QUARTO EDITIONS 

1. A. [1578, Xmas.] 

EUPHUES. THE ANATOMY OF WIT. 

Title—F EUPHV&S. | THE ANATOMY | OF WYT. | Very 

pleasant for all Gentle-\men to reade, and most neces-+sary to remember: | 

wherin are contained the delights | that Wyt followeth in his youth by 

the I pleasauntnesse of Loue, and the | happynesse he reapeth in | age, 

by I the perfectnesse of | Wisedome. | F By John Lylly Master of | 

Arte. Oxon. | II Imprinted at London for | Gabriell Cawood, dwel-\\ing 

in Paules Church-|yarde. 

No colophon. FINIS is followed by the printer East's device of a horse, 

as in MCG. The two introductory addresses are in roman type. 

Folios numbered 1-88, commencing with tale on sig. B. Fols. 46, 48, 

and 81 misnumbered 39, 41, and 1 respectively. 

Signatures—A-T 4, i. e. A (four leaves), B-E in eights, F-T in fours. 

B. is under ce o in vice ouercast K. is under hat in hath 

C. „ „ ger „ vinaiger L. „ „ ro „ growe 

E. „ „ cilia „ Lucilla o. „ „ s s „ as sufficient 

F. „ „ I th „ I thinck Q. „ „ wa „ perswasion 

H. „ „ ge „ courage. R. „ „ oce „ proceedeth. 

The two known copies (in excellent condition) are well printed, but 

extremely careless of punctuation. Most of these errors were corrected 

in the second edition, and most of the remainder in C, G or E 1 . There 

are 38 bad mis-spellings; 5 omissions ('it,' 'is ' or 'can'); and 21 errors, 

mostly orthographical, slightly affecting sense, e.g. 310 1.16 ' Ferardo' for 

' Eubulus'; 312 1.21 ' with' for ' which'; 313 1.6 ' of vertues ' for ' of y e 

vertuous '; 265 1.32 ' force' for ' face'; 267 1. 8 ' Phocides' for ' Phocilides'; 

278 1.25 ' choler' for ' colour '; 288 1.11 ' more' for ' meere.' 

The editio princeps also contains the following, eliminated in T and succeeding 

eds., the first as replaced by a longer passage, the rest as 

unnecessary: 185 1.8 'and leauing the rule of reason, rashly ranne vnto 

destruction'; 186 1. 7 'and mancion house'; 196 1.10 'or hammer'; 

ib. 1.11 ' and occupyed'; 206 1.5 ' yet'; 301 1. 7 ' the.' 

2. T. [1579, Mids.]' 

Title—F &UPHVES. \ THE ANATOMY | OF WIT. | Very pleasant 

for all Gentle-1men to reade, and most neces-\sA.ry to remember. | wherin 

are conteined the delights \ that Wit followeth in his youth, b'y the |

TITLES, COLOPHONS, ETC. 107 

pleasantnesse of loue, and the hap-|pinesse he reapeth in | age, by | the 

perfectnesse of | Wisedome. | IF By John Lylly Master | of Art. | Corrected 

and augmented. | • Imprinted at London for | Gabriell Cawood, dwel-\ 

ling in Paules Church-|yard. 

Colophon ? (last two leaves wanting). N.B.—The three introductory 

addresses are in roman type. 

Pagination—by leaves, 2-88, commencing on the second leaf of the 

tale, B ij, with the single error of ' 97' on fol. 79. 

Signatures—A-Z 4, i. e. A four leaves, U two leaves (containing only the 

Address to the Gent. Scholars), B-z in fours. The last of the two missing 

leaves would have been paged 90 and signed A a ij. 

IT is under 

E „ 

G „ 

H „ 

J „ 

in in 

Idt „ 

hi „ 

hy „ 

:t „ 

into 

would take 

him 

thy ' 

: then 

M 

N 

Q 

T 

Y 

is under 

" 

" 

" 

" 

eak in 

ith „ 

nsi „ 

an u „ 

th „ 

creake 

with 

consideration 

an unsufficient 

thou 

The only known copy is well printed, except on the last few pages. It 

corrects 38 mis-spellings, errors, or omissions of A; makes some 20 verbal 

changes; and exhibits 10 bad mis-spellings, 11 omissions, and 20 corruptions 

of its own (7 of the last persist till 1636). But these details are 

insignificant beside its extensive reform of A's punctuation, and the 

making of the following substantial additions to the text, referred to in 

the words ' Corrected and augmented' on the title-page of this and all 

subsequent quartos, and inserted in my text within square brackets. 

Pp. 324-6 the Address to the Gentlemen Scholars of Oxford (62 lines) 

„ 185 'who preferring . . . owne will. But' (11 lines) 

„ 186 ' singled his game ... & other like.' (13 lines) 

„ 191 ' unlesse you . . . toucheth nature' (1 line) 

„ 195 'Ah Euphues ... in thy self.' (8 lines) 

„ 199 ' Either Euphues . . . ridiculous. But' (4 lines) 

„ 200 ' Yet least. . . Lucilla. Yet' (14 lines) 

„ 207 ' Time hath weaned .. . loue hath done.' (10 lines) 

„ 210-1 ' If Lucilla ... or frowarde words.' (28 lines) 

„ 213-4 'Now if thy cunning . . . into thy handes.' (10 lines) 

„ 214 'for perswade ... in thy necessities (2 lines) 

„ 215 ' for my books . . . cure, let vs goe :' (5 lines) 

„ 216-7 'Euphues takynge ... no no Lucilla? (57 lines) 

„ 242 ' Euphues hauing . .. olde follyes. But' (3 lines) 

making a total of 228 lines or about 6 pages. These passages, which 

bear distinctly the character of later additions, all (with the exception of 

the Address) occur in the first half of the work, i. e. in the tale itself, and 

are intended to remove inconsistencies or round off an abruptness due 

to Lyly's absorption in style rather than matter. Thus that on p. 185 is 

probably meant to give the treatise Euphues and his Ephcebus a more

o8 EUPHUES: TEXT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 

intimate connexion with the narrative, and that on p. 207 enforces the 

same moral against parental indulgence, while it accentuates Lucilla's 

want of filial feeling and of self-restraint. Those on pp. 186 and 195 are 

meant to confirm the assertion of Euphues' great talents, while the latter 

also removes an abruptness in the narrative inconsistent with the strong 

feeling attributed to Eubulus. The brief addition on p. 199, and the 

second on p. 214, are to foreshadow the ultimate confirmation of the 

friendship between Euphues and Philautus, the dissolution of which the 

reader would, from the reflections on p. 197, more naturally expect. That 

on p. 200 serves to introduce Livia, of whom in the first edition not a word 

is said before the speech, on p. 212, in which Euphues feigns that she, 

and not Lucilla, is his flame. That on pp. 210-1 supplies the reaction from 

despondency necessary to explain Euphues' persistence in his suit. That 

on pp. 213-4 and the few lines on p. 215 are perhaps added merely for 

the sake of the variety of the medical metaphor; but the first has a 

further appropriateness to the relation of the two friends in the Second 

Part, where Philautus is continually reproached for his susceptibility. 

The long insertion on pp. 216-7 was necessary to remove the abruptness 

caused by introducing Ferardo immediately after the arrival of Philautus 

and Euphues, while it also fills in a little the attractive picture of the 

suppressed passion between the lovers. The three lines on p. 242 simply 

round off an abruptness. The Address to the Gentlemen Scholars is (as 

stated in the Life, p. 21) an attempt to palliate, or conciliate any ill-will 

caused by, his remarks on Athens in Euphues and his Ephoebus, Among 

the score of verbal changes made in T, as distinct from additions, 

corrections or corruptions, are those recorded in the footnotes on pages 

179 11.10,18,19, 180 1. 20, 182 11. 6-9, 184 1.15, 185 I.4, 186 1.1, 199 I.29, 

209 1. 13, 242 1. 7. That on p. 180 probably reflects the favourable reception 

of the first edition: those on p. 182 help to fix T as the second: ail bear 

the stamp of the author's hand. They are almost confined to the beginning 

of the work, but probably the whole underwent Lyly's personal revision. 

3. M. 1579 [Xmas]. 

Title--F &UPHVES. \ THE ANATOMY | OF WIT. | Very pleasant 

for all Gentle-lmen to reade, and most neces- |sary to remember, | wherin 

are conteined the delights | that Wit followeth in his youth, by the | 

pleasantnesse of loue, and the hap-|pinesse he reapeth in | age, by | the 

perfectnesse of | Wisedome. | F By John Lylly Master | of Art. | Corrected 

and augmented. | F Imprinted at London for | Gabriell Cawood, dwel-\ 

ling in Paules Church-yard. 

Colophon—F Imprinted at London by Thomas East, for | Gabriel 

Cawood, dwelling in Paules Church-yard. | 1579.—N.B. The closing 

paragraph of the tale ' I haue finished .. . comming,' printed in black 

letter in AGE rest, is given in small romans in M. The three addresses 

are in roman type, that to the Gent. Schol. being transferred to the end.


Pagination—by leaves, 2-90, exactly as T. 

Signatures—A-F 2, i. e. A-z in fours, A a two leaves, F two leaves (containing 

only the Address to the Gent. Scholars). The second leaf of A a 

is signed by mistake ' A ij.' Position of sigs. is as follows:— 

B. is u tnder ich in which 

I. is tinder :t in 

c. 

D. 

E. 

F. 

G. 

H. 

, , 

, 

„ 

,, 

„ 

urn " returneth K. 

sh, " 

O CO " so comon L. 

ad " 

ta " take 

M. 

rea " 

eas " reason N. 

de " 

iue " giue 

0. 

or " 

n th " in thy P. 

unt " 

Q. is under cons in consideration. 

earnest :then 

wish, 

had 

creake, 

minde 

or 

counterfaite 

M is perhaps the most perfect edition, well printed, and embodying the 

additions and reformations of T, but clearly having A as well as T before 

it in its preparation. Its changes from T are few. It corrects 15 of 

T's 20 corruptions, while it makes 6 of its own—see footnotes, pp. 184 1.11, 

209 1.2, 211 II.3,12, 247 1.2, 302 1.6, besides 8 bad mis-spellings, and 3 

changes of text, 194 1.1, 240 1. 13, 286 1. 24, the first of which, affecting 

a whole line, is clearly the author's, as is probably the transference of the 

Address To the Gentlemen Schollers to the end. The Bodleian copy (M 1 ) 

is perfect and in excellent condition. The Morley copy (M 2 ) lacks the 

four first and two last leaves, but is otherwise in good condition, and 

having escaped binding until it came into Prof. Morley's possession, is 

distinguished among the other quartos by the ample width of its margins, 

in which the frequency of inscription in a contemporary hand testifies to 

its study, or perhaps neglect. 

4. C. 1580 [Easter]. 

Title--F EUPHV&S. | THE ANATOMY | OF WIT. | Verie 

pleasant for all Gentle-\men to read, and most neces-\sarie to remember. | 

wherein are conteined the de-|lyghts that Wit followeth in his youth, by | 

the pleasantnesse of loue, and the | happinesse he reapeth in | age, 

by I the perfectnesse of | Wisedome. | F By Ihon Lyly Master | of Art. | 

Corrected and augmented. | Imprinted at London for | Gabriel Cawood 

dwel-lmg in Paules Church-lyard. 

Colophon—F Imprinted at London by Thomas | East, for Gabriell 

Cawood, dwelling | in Paules Church-yard. | 1580.—N.B. The closing 

paragraph of the tale * I haue finished ... comming,' is printed in ordinary 

romans, larger than those of the same paragraph in M. The three 

introductory addresses are in romans. 

Pagination—by leaves, 2-88, commencing with the tale on fol. 2 

signed B ij, with the two errors of '57' and '59' for fols. 58 and 60 

respectively.


Signatures—A-z 4 in fours. 

D is under 

F " 

G " 

I " 

L.iij „ 

N " 

P " 

P.iij „ 

u.ij „ 

z.iij „ 

h 

L 

0 ex 

ofi 

d by c 

nt 

n 

n him 

ing m 

elen a 

in 

" 

" 

" 

" 

" 

" 

" 

" 

" 

his 

Lucilla 

to excell 

profite 

allienated by chaunge 

in their 

onely 

vppon him 

bring my 

Helen all 

The two surviving copies of C are well printed and in good condition, 

though that in the Bodleian lacks the first five leaves. This edition, 

based on M, and corrected by A, without necessary reference to T, has 

considerable claims to have enjoyed Lyly's personal revision. It carries 

forward the reform of the punctuation initiated by T: it restores the 

reading of A in 12 cases where T or M had corrupted it—see footnotes, 

pp. 184 1.11, 188 1. 14, 196 I.33, 205 1.12, 209 11.2,12, 216 I.35, 230 I.26, 

247 1. 2, 270 I.36, 285 1.22, 298 1.5—and it introduces some 20 changes of 

its own (as distinct from corruptions), all of which persist to the end, and 

of which 14 must be considered improvements—see footnotes, pp. 182 1.6, 

184 11. 14-5, 196 1. 30, 210 1.15, 214 1. 26, 238 1. 3, 247 1. 30, 264 1.35, 272 

1.12, 284 1.32, 288 1.11, 302 1.6, 304 1.31, 308 1.23—while 6 are indifferent. 

On the other hand it introduces a large number of trifling and quite otiose 

changes, such as the substitution of the singular for the plural of a substantive 

or vice versa, or of one preposition or auxiliary verb for another, 

or of the past for the present tense, or the needless transposition of verb 

and subject—this feature of trifling and otiose change being shared with 

G and E 1 ; it exhibits a general tendency to omit unimportant little 

words, in one or two cases with injury to the grammar; and it introduces 

24 fresh corruptions, of which 10 persist to the last quarto, 1636. 

5. G. 1581. 

Title-EVPHVES. | THE ANATOMY | OF WIT. | Verie pleasaunt 

for all I Gentlemen to read, and \ most necessarie to remember, | wherein 

are contained the | delightes that Wit followeth in his youth | by the 

pleasantnesse of loue, & the hap-|pinesse he reapeth in age, by | the 

perfectnesse of | Wisedome. | F By Iohn Lyly Master | of Art. | Corrected 

and augmented. | F Imprinted at London \for Gabriel Cawood dwel-\ 

ling in Paules Church-yard. 

Colophon—F Imprinted at London by | Thomas East, for Gabriel 

Cawood, I dwelling in Paules Church-|yard. 1581.—N.B. The Ep. Ded. is 

in romans, the two addresses to the Gent. Readers and Gent. Scholars 

are in black letter. This, and the Bodleian ed. of [1595?] E 1 , are the 

only ones in which the black letter invades the introductory matter.'

TITLES, COLOPHONS, ETC 111 

Pagination—By leaves, 1-88, commencing on the leaf signed B containing 

the address to the Gent. Scholars. Fols. 58, 69, 77-80 are misnumbered 

56, 95, and 95-98 respectively. 

Signatures—A-z 4 in fours. 

D. is under 

F. " 

G. 

I. " 

L.iii. „ 

N. 

P. " 

P.iii. „ 

U.ii. „ 

Z. iii. „ 

his 

cill 

ork 

tsl 

y chau 

Loo 

Me 

on h 

bring 

elope 

in 

" 

" 

" 

" 

" 

" 

" 

" 

his 

Lucilla 

works 

what slender 

by chaunge 

Looke 

Achilles 

vppon him 

bring 

Penelope 

The Grenville is a clean copy, printed fairly well on thicker paper than 

usual; but the edition it represents is distinctly inferior to the preceding. 

The careless printer introduces some 50 corruptions (often excessively 

inept) and omissions, e. g. p. 309 1. 25 (9 words) ; though on the other 

hand there are nearly 3o changes, persisting till 1636, which may be 

counted as slight improvements, e.g. pp. 188 1.32, 225 1.6, 278 II. 7, 29, 

297 I.20, 301 I.34, 304 I.4 (G-F), 314 I.33, 320 I.12. The wholesale 

alteration of unimportant trifles is continued, as is also the reform of 

the punctuation. Probably Lyly revised a copy of C and sent that to the 

printer, but did not correct any proof. The direct connexion of G with 

any earlier edition than C is not clearly made out. 

8. E1. [1595?] 

Title—EVPHVES. I THE ANATOMY | OF WIT | Very pleasant 

for all Gentlemen to | reade, and most necessarie to | remember. | 

Wherein are contained the delights | that Wit followeth in his youth, by 

the plea-|santnesse of loue: and the happinesse he rea-|jfeM in age, by 

the perfectnesse of \ wisedome. | • By John Lylie, Maister | of Art. | 

Corrected and augmented. | AT LONDON. | Printed by I. Roberts for 

Gabriell | Cawood, dwelling in Paules | Churchyarde. (No d.: no col.) 

Printed in a slightly more compressed form, unpaged, and on inferior 

paper, this edition is on the whole the greatest innovator and the greatest 

offender. It presents 66 corruptions of some importance, besides 30 others 

retained from G, and 20 from preceding editions ; also 20 omissions, 

two of them (pp. 253 1.37 and 265 1.35) of almost a line: and the great 

majority of these corruptions and omissions are handed down to 1636. 

I have made a further list of nearly 60 changes equally persistent: 30 of 

these are either indifferent, or modernizations, or sacrifices of original 

vigour to smoothness; 20 are perhaps improvements due to Lyly, 

e.g. pp. 193 l.11, 209 1.6, 212 11.2,17, 253 11.2,21, 2801.18, 312 1.4, and


about 10 are corrections of original errors, as pp. 184 1.17, 315 1. 33, 

3161.24, or of corruptions, as pp. 211 1. 3, 235 1. 30. These changes and 

corrections, together with some further mending of the punctuation, are 

sufficient to suggest that E 1 may have been printed from a copy of G revised 

by Lyly with A and T before him : but the large number of errors in this, 

as in C and G, excludes the idea of any proof correction by the author; and 

E 1 remains on the whole the chief corruptor of the text oiEuphues, always 

remembering, however, that the blame may be in part assignable to the two 

preceding editions (1585 and 1587) which I have been unable to inspect. 

9. E 2 .[1597?] 

Title—Exactly as E 1 in every detail of type, punctuation and spelling, 

except that E 2 spells 'contayned' and 'Churchyard.' The agreement 

extends to the collation, and to the absence of colophon and pagination. 

For some differences, see p. 94. 

This, the last edition published by Gabriel Cawood, has comparatively 

few changes of text, though sufficient to mark it as a separate edition. 

It has 7 fresh corruptions which persist till 1636, and 5 others repeated 

in F. It presents but 3 corrections, pp. 214 1.25, 249 1.16, and 302 1.6, 

the two latter a return to AT; and 10 changes, two of which, 196 1.13 and 

2171.31, may be considered improvements, as may some half-dozen others 

quite unimportant. There are also a few punctual emendations ; but I see 

no sufficient reason to suppose that Lyly had a hand in this edition. 

12. F. 1607. 

Title—EVPHVES. | THE ANATOMIE | OF WIT, | Verie pleasant 

for all Gentlemen to reade | and most necessarie to remember | Wherein 

are contained the delights that Wit follow-|eth in his youth, by the 

pleasantnesse of loue: | and the happinesse he reapeth in age, by the | 

perfectnesse of wisedome. | By lohn Lylie, Maister of Art. | Corrected 

and augmented. | [Printer's device—a winged and laurelled skull; above, 

an hour-glass and an open book inscribed i I liue to dy I dy to liue'; 

below, a globe] AT LONDON. ( Printed for William Leake, dwelling in | 

Paules Church-yard, at the Signe of the ) Holy Ghost. 1607. 

F, the third edition issued by William Leake, is printed on wretchedly 

thin paper, which shows the type through, and the copy is much stained 

by damp. As it contains the latest possible corrections of the author, 

who died in November, 1606, I have thought it worth while to collate it 

throughout; but the results afford no ground for supposing Lyly's hand 

in it, though it may represent some rough revision made on the transfer 

of the work to Leake, and subject to the corruption of his two preceding 

editions which I have not seen. It appears to be based on E 2 , with a rare 

reference to A or exercise of an independent intelligence. Its original 

corrections are 6—pp. 191 ll. 1,32, 2111.31, 2221.22, 272 I.24, 308 1.15 (the


last 3 merely orthographical)-—while in 3 others it reverts to the reading 

of A—197 1. 2, 243 1. 38, 281 1. 3. It reproduces the vast majority of 

E's corruptions, and introduces 20 of its own (only 6 of which persist), 

while 6 others are attempts to emend a corruption introduced by E. 

13. 1613. 

Title as F, but with new device—an open book with flames issuing ; 

above, a dove amid clouds with large wreath; surrounded by scroll 

* Veritas tua et usque ad nubes.' 

This, the last edition printed for William Leake, makes a laudable 

effort to stem the tide of corruption. Though I have only collated it 

where the earlier editions claimed a footnote, I note its correction, by 

earlier editions, of 36 errors (mostly due to E or F, but four of them 

found as early as C). In pp. 242 1. 21 and 265 1. 36 we have cases of 

emendation without such reference ; while in the following 8 cases it 

corrects the original text—197 11.17, 36, 211 11.5,7, 2841. 2, 303 1. 21, 321 

1. 11, 323 1. 11. It retains, however, a vast number of the corruptions 

already introduced; among them 6 from F, on which edition it must be 

based, while correcting its errors by A, T or M. 

14-17. 1617-1636. 

In the four remaining quartos the two Parts are published together 

and signed continuously, but with fresh title-page for Part II. In neither 

Part do the titles show any verbal change save in the names of printer, 

publisher, or vendor; and of course the device changes with the 

printer—Eld's (1617) being for Part I a mere geometrical pattern in 

a circle, for Part II a medallion showing a man* kneeling in a landscape 

and an angel hovering above with arm outstretched in blessing; Beale's 

(1623) being an escutcheon with griffin's head to left, and two shields 

above; and Haviland's (1630, Part II) being a flaming heart surrounded 

by a wreath. The edition of 1623 is distinguishable from those of 1617, 

and 1630-31, and the latter from that of 1636, by differences of spelling, 

e.g. pp. 245 1. 35, 315 1. 10, vol. ii. 143 1. 12, 151 1. 26: vol. i. 241 1. 29, 

vol. ii. 157 1.24, 176 1. 20, 177 1. 14. 

18. 1716. 8vo. 

Title—Euphues and Lucilla: | or the | False Friend and Inconstant 

Mistress. | To which is added, Ephœbus; \ or | Instructions for theEdu-| 

cation of Youth. | With | Letters | upon | Death, Banishment, and the 

Vices I of Courtiers and Students. | Written Originally by John Lyly, M.A. 

in I the Reign of Queen Elizabeth; and now revis'd, | and render'd into 

Modern English, to make it of | more general Use to the Publick. | 

I present you a Lilly growing in a Grove of Lawrels: For this Poet l 

sate at the Suns Table : Apolio gave him a wreath of his own I 

Bays, without snatching. The Lyre he play'd on, had no bor- l 

row'd Strings. Blount's Dedixation to Lyly's Plays. 

London; | Printed; and Sold by J. Noon, and T. Sharpey, l at the 

White-Hart in Cheapside. MDCCXVI.| 

BOND 1 I


This version is preceded (i) by a brief Epistle Dedicatory (signed 

simply ' your Lordship's most Obedient Humble Servant,' with no name) 

addressed to the Lord de la Warre of 1716, and alluding to his descent 

from Lyly's patron of that title. (2) By an address ' To the Reader' 

signed ' Yours, &c.,' which recommends Lyly as ' then accounted the most 

Witty and Facetious Poet of his time: He was a great Refiner of the 

English Tongue in those Days, as appears by the Character given him 

in the Second Part of this Book, and will be much more evinc'd by this 

New Translation of it,' &c, gives a brief summary of the contents, and 

then continues—'As to some railing Expressions in Love's Diversion 

against the Fair Sex; I must needs tell the virtuous English Ladies, 

they have no reason to be offended, since the Scene of the story is in 

Naples; and therefore can have no relation to them, but only to the 

Guilty. . .. And therefore, if you desire, Ladies, to have your own Worth 

truly blazon'd, and your Praises brightly set forth, the Encouragement of 

the First Part will call forth the Second,' &c.—a promise so far as I know 

never fulfilled. The three Introductory addresses are then given without 

alteration, save that the one ' To the Gentlemen Readers' appears third 

and not second. The tale itself follows Euphues closely, but with continued 

slight modification of the language, and abbreviation or elimination of 

the similes. ' Love's Diversion' turns out to be merely a new title substituted 

for ' A cooling Carde for Philautus,' &c, p. 246. The short address of 

' Euphues to the Gentlemen Schollers in Athens' at the end of ' Euphues 

and his Ephcebus' is omitted, as well as the whole of the dialogue 

' Euphues and Atheos': but all the Letters are given. 

Another issue of No. 18 with fresh title-page. 1718. 8vo. 

Title—The | FALSE FRIEND | and | Inconstant Mistress:J AN 

INSTRUCTIVE | NOVEL. | To which is added | Love's Diversion;) 

DISPLAYING I The Artifices of the Female Sex in | their Amours, 

Dress, &c. With Directions for the Education of Both | Sexes; and 

a Collection of Moral Let-|ters on Curious Subjects. | By John Lyly, M.A. 

One of the Refi-|ners of the English Tongue in the Reign of | Queen 

Elizabeth. \ London: Printed for John Hooke, at the Flower-de-luce, 

over against St. Dunstan' s Church in Fleet-\street, 1718. Price 2s. 

It agrees in all respects except the title-page with the revision (No. 18) 

just described. 

19. Arber's Reprint, 1868, is a faithful reproduction of Prof. Morley's 

copy (M 2 ), i. e. of the 3 rd edition, collated with G. 1581, i. e. with the 5 th ,from 

which also the missing four first and two last leaves are supplied. He has 

a good chronological summary of facts in Lyly's life, reproducing several 

documents, &c—a chronicle which, though it now stands in need of correction, 

I have found of great service : and though he is occasionally wrong in 

the bibfiography, yet there too he has been very useful; while his review of 

opinion on Euphues from Lyly's time to our own is valuable and, for the nine-


teenth century, fuller than I have been able to include in my own already 

overfull pages (see my Life, pp. 79-82; and Euphues and Euphuism, 

pp. 146-53). 

20. Landmann's incomplete edition (1887) is printed from A, which he 

rightly recognized as of the editio princeps, and collates Arber's text 

(printed from M 2 ) and G. He gives us an Introduction, biographical, 

bibliographical and critical, which is careful and thorough, though sometimes 

mistaken. Dr. Landmann was the first to explore thoroughly the 

connexion of Lyly's work with that of Guevara, see below, pp. 154-6. 

Also he adds some ten pages of illustrative notes, not very full nor 

always reliable, but the only ones that have hitherto appeared. 

EUPHUES AND HIS ENGLAND. 

1. M. 1580. 

Titie- F Euphues and his England. I CONTAINING | his 

voyage and aduentures, myxed with | sundry pretie discourses of honest | 

Loue,thediscriptionofthe | countrey, the Court, and | the manners of that | 

Isle. I D&LIGHTFUL TO | be read, and nothing hurtfuH to be 

regar-|ded : wher-in there is small offence | by lightnesse giuen to the wise, | 

and lesse occasion of loose-|nes proffered to the | wanton. | F By Iohn 

Lyiy, Maister | of Arte. | Commend it, or amend it. | ^Imprinted at 

London for | Gabriell Cawood, dwelling in | Paules Church-yard. 11580. 

Pagination—by leaves, 1-140, commencing with the tale on sig. B. If 

perfect, the last leaf would be 142. 

For the position of the signatures in this and the two following editions 

see p. 96. 

M, the editio princeps of Part II, is distinguished from that of Part I 

by the far greater care taken with the punctuation, and the attention 

bestowed on its arrangement into paragraphs. It is partly due to the 

latter cause that a work nearly two-fifths as long again as The Anatomy 

of Wit is much less tedious to read; while I have only found 67 changes 

of the punctuation necessary (27 being adopted from A, 26 from E, 

8 from H, and only 1 without authority) as against 161 in the former work. 

The unique Morley copy, though sometimes unevenly inked and showing 

the print through the leaf, is in very good condition, save for the lack of 

the last two leaves. 

Four of the footnotes are of some few words omitted in all subsequent 

editions: vol. ii. pp. 261.2, a whole line, 78 1.36, 89 11.2 3-4,13 5 1.28. I count 

62 errors of orthography without effect on the sense ; 32 other errors, mostly 

orthographical, such as might cause misapprehension, while others are bad 

mistakes, e. g. pp. 741.30,176 1. 27,1771. 3, 184 1. 2,1941.18,217 1.8; and 

some 12 omissions of little words, mostly of no importance. The great 

majority of these errors of all kinds are corrected in A, a few more in 

B, and some in E. 

I 2


2. A. 1580. 

Title—exactly as M in type, punctuation, and orthography. 

Colophon—1T Imprinted at London, by Thomas East, for Gabriel 

Cawood dwelling in Paules Churchyard. 1580. 

Pagination—by leaves, 1-132, commencing with the tale on sig. B. 

The only known copy of the second edition is in the Bodleian Library, 

bound with the Malone copy (3rd ed.) of Part I. It is in excellent condition, 

but wants fol. 32. It corrects most of the errors of M; makes some 15 

other changes, of which only the following seem of any importance—vol. ii. 

pp. 32 1. 5, 33 1. 29, 361. 33, 53 1. 23, 57 1. 27, 66 1. 19, 96 1. 29, 162 1. 15 ; 

and is guilty of about 55 distinct corruptions, 24 of which are corrected by 

B, 16 by G or E, while 13 persist down to 1636. Its few changes, its four 

omissions (noted under M), and its reform of the punctuation, are such as 

imply Lyly's revision ; but, as usual, the author can have seen no proof. 

8. B. 1580. 

Title—exactly as MA, except in spelling 'wherein' for 'wher-in' of 

the two preceding. 

Colophon—appears in Camb. copy exactly as in A. In the Oxford copy 

the last leaf is mutilated, so that ' Gabriel ' and ' 1580' are torn away. 

Pagination—by leaves, 2-132, commencing with the second leaf of the 

tale sig. B ii. For position of sigs. of M, A and B, see p. 96 above. 

Two copies exist of this, the third edition, one in the Bodleian, the 

other in the Cambridge University Library, both bound with the fourth 

edition (C) of Part I, which must however have been printed several 

months earlier m the year. Of B's few corrections, vol. ii. pp. 161.17, 871.1, 

941.34,1311. 5,1871.21, are the most important. It has about 25 corruptions 

(a few merely orthographical), about 20 of which are peculiar to itself, while 

20 persist till 1636. One or two of its departures, e.g. 941.34, suggest that 

it was printed from A, and corrected its errors, without reference to M. 

5. G. 1582. 

The titles of this, the preceding C, and the three next editions (1586, 

1588, 1592), so far as reproduced by Arber and Hazlitt, show no verbal 

change. Arber's text embodies in parenthesis G's variants from M, 

and indicates by an asterisk its words omitted. Its corruptions seem less 

numerous than those of B, its corrections more important. I have made 

a list of 22 chief ones among the former, of which 18 persist: while 

the chief corrections are vol. ii. pp. 26 1. 36, 80 1. 10, 161 1. 177 1• 3, 

1991.10,2141.10, 215 1. 2. There seems more probability of Lyly's revising 

hand in this edition than in B; but one edition (C) intervened, in which 

the corrections may have been rather made. 

9. E. 1597. 

Title—EVPHVES AND HIS J ENGLAND. | Containing his voyage and 

aduentures: Mixed with sundry | prettie discourses of honest loue,

TITLES, COLOPHONS, ETC 117 

the de-lscription of the Countrie, the Court, and | the manners of the | 

Isle. | Delightfull to be read, and nothing | hurtfull to be regarded: 

wherein there | is small offence by lightnesse giuen to the | wise, and 

lesse occasion of loosenesse | proffered to the vvan-|ton. | By Iohn Lyly 

Maister | of Art. | Commend it or amend it. | At London, | Printed by 

I. R. for Gabriell Ca-|wood, and are to be sold at his Shop | in Paules 

Churchyarde. | 1597. 

Like the E 1 of Part I, the E of Part II presents a far larger number of 

changes than any other I have seen. The great majority of them are 

stupid and inept corruptions, many of which later editions decline to 

follow, though they perpetuate most of them. I have made no attempt 

to count them: they swell the footnotes on every page. Among them 

may be mentioned the following considerable omissions, none of them 

however exceeding one line in length :—vol. ii. pp. 88 l. 25, 891. 32, 911.24, 

113 1.17, 123 1. 9, 199 11. 5-6, 210 1.34, 212 11.22-3—of which 113 1.17 is 

perhaps an improvement, 19911.5-6 (feathers at girdle) is to suit a change in 

fashion, and 212 11. 22-3 (omission of ' & the Prince they haue without any 

other chaunge'), which might be thought born of his dissatisfaction with the 

Queen in 1597, is probably simply due to the likeness of the last word 

' chaunge' to ' chaunce,' which immediately precedes the omission—but cf. 

the change of 'feareth ill ' to 'fareth ill,' p. 212 1. 16. Among original 

corrections I have noted the following, all persistent—pp. 3 11. 9, 22, 6 1.6, 

7 1.1, 8 11. 23, 24, 27,11 1. 29, 22 1. 8, 26 11.11, 13, 28 1. 25, 93 1. 29 (E-H), 

94 1. 6, 99 1. 24, 173 1. 24, 187 1. 31; while pp. 22 1. 30, 191 l. 7, 210 1. 9, 

are instances of reversion to the reading of M. Another feature of this 

edition is that in one part it exhibits some slight additions or expansions, 

the only Qnes that appear to have been made in the whole course of the 

work's publication. These are pp. 144 11. 24-5 (one line), 28, 29, 30-2 

(two lines), 173 1. 33, 175 1. 8 (one line), 178 1. 8: they can scarcely be 

considered as great improvements, or indeed as other than mere verbal 

expansions, so that I have kept them in the footnotes without disturbing 

the text of A; but taken in connexion with the reform of the punctuation 

found in this edition, and with the original corrections noted above, they 

seem to show that Lyly spent some pains in revising either this, or more 

probably one of those preceding it, but later than that of 1582. It is 

possible that he made a revision of both Parts in 1592,, and that E 1 of 

Part I should date in that year rather than [1595 ?]. 

II. F.1606. 

Title exactly resembles No. 12, except that it spells ' voyage' does not 

italicize ' of the lle,' and concludes ' occasion' with the line. The British 

Museum copy of this edition is bound with Part I of 1607, and shares its 

misfortunes or original defects. It shows revision, but not, I think, the 

author's. If it corrects many of the corruptions introduced by E, it 

leaves still more uncorrected; and of its 21 original corrections, some


are merely orthographical, or the substitution of a more modern or a less 

emphatic word, and only one or two are striking, e. g. vol. ii. pp. 73 1. 23, 

143 1. 30, 176 1. 26, 188 1. 7; while it presents about an equal number (18) 

of original corruptions which are perpetuated. I do not think that Lyly's 

hand is seen in this edition, the last where his revision is possible. 

12. H. 1609. 

Title— EVPHVES I AND HIS ENG|LAND. | Containing his 

voiage and aduentures : \ Mixed with sundry pretty discourses of | honest 

loue, the description of the Coun-|try, the Court, and the manners | of 

the Ile, I Delightfull to be read, and nothing hurt-|full to be regarded : 

wherein there is small | offence by lightnesse giuen to the wise, and 

lesse occasi-|on of loosenes proffered to the wanton. | F By Iohn Lily, 

Master of Art. | Comnend it, or amend it, | [Printer's device of the 

winged skull, &c, as given under Part I, 1607] | AT LONDON. | Printed 

for William Leake, dwelling in Pauls church-|yard, at the signe of the 

Holy-ghost. I 1609. 

No colophon. Unpaged. Sigs. A-E 4 in fours. Position of sigs.:— 

C is under e th in become the H is under eft inlvltjust missing the . 

D „ ot 1 „ cannot Hue K „ me in comelinesse 

E „ horn „ whom N „ or m „ or my 

F „ er „ under o „ hila „ Philautus 

G „ tru „ trust Q „ e, or „ life, or 

Another mark of identification will be found in the uneven printing of E 4 

recto, the centre portion of the lines being lower than the two extremities. 

It is most marked in the running-title, but extends to the whole page. 

H adds 15 to the long list of permanent corruptions, balanced by only 

one or two emendations of equal importance. ' Queene' becomes ' King,' 

p. 194 1. 34- 

The titles of editions 1605 and 1613, so far as reported by Hazlitt 

(Colls, i. 270, ii. 372), exhibit no change of wording: nor do those of 

eds. 1617 onwards, collated by myself. These later editions have only 

been textually collated where the earlier called for a footnote, to ascertain 

the persistence or disappearance of a corruption or emendation. Perhaps 

that of 1623 exhibits most independence. It restores a reading of M or of 

AB in vol. ii. pp. 59 1. 14, 84 1. 2, 138 1. 32, 182 1. 6. Similar restorations 

made in Part II of 1630 are found in pp. 57 1. 27, 60 1. 6, 91 1. 25, 98 1. 21, 

119 1. 29; and in Part II of 1636 in pp. 93 1. 1, 166 1. 14, 179 1. 2, 214 1. 37. 

18. Arber's Reprint (1868) follows with admirable fidelity Professor 

Morley's copy (M), which in the case of the Second Part represents the 

editio princeps, and is the only known copy of it. He supplies the two 

missing .leaves at the end from the copy of the 2 nd edition (A 1580) in the 

Bodleian ; and collates the whole with the 5 th edition (G 1582), and, where 

that lacks a few leaves (= his pp. 362-3, 463-78), with the 6 th (D 1586).

EUPHUES AND EUPHUISM 

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 

No edition of this famous work could be considered complete 

without some account of the style in which it is written, and to 

which it has given a name 1 ; but so full and frequent has been the 

discussion of Euphuism, since Professor Morley published his article 

upon it in the Quarterly Review for April, 1861 (No. 218, vol. 109), 

that addition is difficult, and full reproduction, within the limits of 

this work, impossible. The most complete account of the style, and 

of all that had previously appeared on this subject, is to be found 

in the John Lyly and Euphuism of Mr. C. G. Child, published in 

Munchener Beitrage at Erlangen and Leipzig, 1894; a careful and 

valuable essay, yet one wherein elaboration reaches a point almost 

inimical to literary study. His chief predecessors are Dr. R. F. 

Weymouth, who read a paper 'On Euphuism' before the Philological 

Society in 1871; and Dr. Landmann with a treatise entitled Der 

Euphuismus: sein IVesen, seine Quelle, seine Geschichte, &c. (Giessen, 

1881). The latter's results were summarized and clarified in a paper 

read before the New Shakspere Society, and published in its 

Transactions, 1880-5, Part II; and were reproduced in his English 

edition of the First Part of Euphues, 1887 : while further criticism of 

the style is to be found in articles by Dr. Breymann and Dr. Schwan 

in Englische Sludieti, vols. 5 and 6 (1882-3). Professor Morley's 

final view, incorporating later results, appeared in English Writers 

(1892), viii. 316-22. To these names we should add, whether as 

interpreters of style or matter, those of Bodenstedt (Shakespeare's 

Zeilgenossen, vol. iii, Berlin, i860), Mezikres (Pridecesseurs et Contemporains 

de Shakespeare, 1863, ch. iii), Hense (two valuable essays, 

chiefly on Lyly's relation to the classics, and that of Shakespeare to 

Lyly in this department, published in the Jahrbuch der Deutschen 

Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, vols, vii, viii, 1872-3), Symonds (Shakspere s 

Predecessors, 1883, ch. xiii, ,an early recognition of Lyly's immense 

importance), Mrs. Humphry Ward (article in the Encyclopaedia 

1 ' The term " Euphuism" is first found in Harvey's Four Letters and certaine 

Sonnets touching Robert Greene (Brydges, Archaica, vol. ii. p. 29),' says Mr. Child 

in John Lyly and Euphuism, p. 10. The date of Harvey's publication was 1592.

EUPHUISM. 

I. STRUC 

TURAL . 

DEVICES. 

(a) Antithesis, 

Rhet 

Quest., 

Repetition. 

120 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 

Britannica, ninth edition), Professor A. W. Ward (History of English 

Dramatic Literature, second edition, 1899, vol. i. ch. 3), M. Jusserand 

[The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, trans, by Eliz. Lee, 

i894),Mr.Fleay [Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1891, 

vol. ii. pp. 36-43), Mr. Sidney Lee (article ' Lyly, John,' in Dictionary 

of National Biography, 1893), and others. Perhaps I should also 

mention an essay of my own, written in the spring of 1894, before 

I had acquainted myself with the work of Mezibres, Hense, 

Landmann or Child: it appeared in the Quarterly Review for 

January, 1896; and its chief results and even many passages are, by 

the kind permission of Mr. John Murray, incorporated below. 

[ I Lyly's famous euphuism aims at writing prose, firstly with great 

fineness and precision of phrase, secondly with great display of 

classical learning and remote knowledge of all kinds. To these two 

desiderata correspond the two classes of its characteristics; firstly, 

those concerned with the structure of his sentences, and secondly, 

those methods of ornament and illustration which, though properly 

considered a part of style, are yet more akin to the material than to 

the architecture of thought, and demand of the architect the quarryman's, 

as well as the sculptor's, toil.[ 

I. In structure 1 he seeks emphasis (a) by the following general 

means:— 

(i) By continual Parallelism or Antithesis; (ii) by the use of a string 

of rhetorical questions, which sometimes answer each other, or of 

a series of arguments pro and con introduced by 'Ay, but'; (iii) (as 

Mr. Child adds) by Repetition. 

(i) Antithesis, which as regards form might usually be called 

Parallelism, is shown in the opposition of words and of ideas in 

sentences balanced against each other; where very often two, three, 

or all the words are parallel in position and grammatical function, 

substantive answering to substantive, adjective to adjective, verb to 

verb, adverb to adverb, &c. To this structural balance of parts of 

speech Dr. Landmann and Mr. Child give the name ' parison' or 

'parisonity.' Of course not evey sentence in a period exhibits it; 

and further, where it occurs, it varies in the extent to which it is 

carried in any sentence or clausfe, and in the number of sentences or 

1 In dealing with this part of my subject I have made full use of Mr. Child's 

essay, adopting his arrangement with some modifications, and also some of his 

examples.

THE STYLE: ANTITHESIS 121 

clauses through which it is kept up—sometimes there are two, 

sometimes three or more, sometimes several pairs. Sense may be 

parallel or antithetic: generally a sentence or clause composed of 

two members of antithetic sense will be paralleled by a second, 

perhaps also a third sentence or clause composed of two members of 

similarly antithetic sense. 

At the risk of tediousness I give four examples: 

Page 189 'Alas, Euphues, by how much the more I loue the highe 

climbinge of thy capacitie, by so muche the more I feare thy fall. The 

fine christall is sooner crazed then the harde marble, the greenest Beeche 

burnetii faster then the dryest Oke, the fairest silke is soonest soyled, and 

the sweetest wine tourneth to the sharpest vineger, the pestilence doth 

most ryfest infect the cleerest complection, and the Caterpiller cleaueth 

vnto the ripest fruite, the most delicate wyt is allured with small enticement 

vnto vice, and moste subiecte to yelde vnto vanitie, if therefore thou 

doe but harken to the Syrens, thou wilte bee enamoured, if thou haunte 

their houses and places, thou shalt be enchaunted.' 

P. 222 ' Though thou haue eaten the seedes of Rockatte which breede 

incontinencie, yet haue I chewed the leafe Cresse which mainteineth 

modestie. Though thou beare in thy bosome the hearbe Araxa most 

noisome to virginitie, yet haue I y e stone y t groweth in the mounte 

Tmolus, the vpholder of chastitie.' 

Vol. ii. p. 52 ' To loue and to lyue well is wished of many, but incident 

to fewe. To Hue and to loue well is incident to fewe, but indifferent to all. 

To loue without reason is an argument of lust, to lyue without loue, 

a token of folly. The measure of loue is to haue no meane, the end to be 

euerlasting.' 

P. 85 ' Ah thrice vnfortunate is he that is once faithful, and better it 

is to be a mercilesse souldiour, then a true louer: the one liueth by an 

others death, y 6 other dyeth by his owne life.' 

1 The perpetual strain after antithesis often leads Lyly into difficulties. 

Sometimes it is transparently artificial, unsupported by any opposition I 

of sense: e.g. 

P. 189 'Heere, yea, heere, Euphues, maiste thou see not the carued 

visarde of a lewde woman, but the incarnate visage of a lasciuious wanton.' 

P. 193 1.3 ' you testie without cause, we hastie for no quarrel '—where 

the antithesis of sense, hitherto maintained, quite fails. 

P. 194 L 26 'your reasons ... be shadowes without substaunce, and 

weake without force.' 

P. 205 11. 25-7 ' Weenest thou that he will haue no mistrust of thy 

faithfulness. when he hath had tryall of thy fycklenesse ? Will he haue 

no doubt of thyne honour, when thou thy selfe callest thyne honestie in 

question ?' (but cf. pp. 20011.3-4, 255 1.35).


P. 239 1. 18 'deeme him vnworthy to enioye that which earst you 

accompted no wight worthy to embrace.' 

5 Sometimes it is pursued with positive injury to the sense, or to 

language: e.g.) 

P. 322 1.22' I would haue him (Philautus) ende as Lucilla began without 

vyce, and not beginne as she ended without honestie'—here ' beginne ' is 

inconsistent with the previous facts, which represent Philautus as ' beginning 

' at least as early as Lucilla. 

Vol. ii. p. 181.10 'Thou hast caryed to thy graue more graye haires then 

yeares, and yet more yeares then vertues '—this favourite form with Lyly 

is here quite inappropriate to the words with which it is used: both 

complaints, taken literally, are unreasonable. 

P. 86 1. 5 ' Thou a woman, y e last thing God made, & therefore y e best. 

I a man yt could not liue without thee,& therefore y 6 worst '—a complete 

non sequitur. 

P. 102 11.12-27 The elaborate parallel of the ivory Vulcan and jet Venus 

is very forced in its application. 

Vol. i. p. 246 1.28 ' if the wasting of our money might not dehort vs, yet 

the wounding of our mindes should deterre vs'—the inkhorn 'dehort' 

(rare but classical Latin) is pressed into the service to match ' deterre.' 

Vol.ii. p. 19 I.4 'among the Aegyptians... a beast full of spots, so amongst 

vs .. . a purse full of golde'—' a beast full of spots ' is an odd locution. 

(ii)\. Rhetorical questions abound through the book.) The following 

is an example of them and of the opposing arguments with ' Ay, 

but.' 

P. 205 11.15-22 'And canst thou, Lucilla, be so light of loue in forsaking 

Philautus to flye to Euphues ? canst thou prefer a straunger before 

thy countryman ? A starter before thy companion ? Why, Euphues doth 

perhappes desyre my loue, but Philautus hath deserued it. Why, 

Euphues feature is worthy as good as I, but Philautus his fayth is worthy 

a better. I, but the latter loue is moste feruent. I, but the firste ought to 

be most faythfull. I, but Euphues hath greater perfection. I, but Philautus 

hath deeper affection.' Cf. the soliloquies of Philautus, pp. 232-3, vol. ii. 

85-90, and that of Camilla, p. 183, &c. 

(\\\)lRepetition\needs no illustration other than the passages already 

given. I Sense and form are perpetually repeated, and sentiments 

driven home by reiterated if varied assertion, or by a string of illustrations] 

Repetition extends even to the subject-matter: severally, or 

compared, the two Parts exhibit a considerable amount of parallelism 

(see below, p. 162). To this repetition is chiefly due the tedium the 

reader can hardly avoid feeling.

THE STYLE: ALLITERATION 123 

(b) Assistant to these general means for giving emphasis are (b) Alliier. 

detailed means, consisting of various forms of Sound-likeness; which word. ation may 

may be divided into (i) likeness of letter, or Alliteration, (ii) Partial likeness. 

or complete likeness of word or syllable.l 

(i) Alliteration: 

1. Simple, where the same letter or sound is used as the initial of 

several words in succession or near neighbourhood, and sometimes 

as the initial of an interior syllable in such word: 

e.g. P. 2411.21 ' least trusting their outwarde talke, he be betraied with 

their inwarde trechery.' P. 269 1.23 furious in their attyre, costly in their 

dyet, carelesse in their behauiour.' Vol. ii. p. 48 1.21 ' yet doth he vse me 

as the weane to woue the watter, and as the wan to wake his wyrrour.' 

Often in one passage two or three letters are taken up in succession. 

P. 202 ' that in paynted pottes is hidden the deadlyest /oyson ? that in 

the .greenest grasse is the greatest Serpent ?' P. 204 11. 22-6 ' When 

they see the folly ... lyues,' &c. P. 208 ' ordayned for euery waladye 

a wedicine, for euery .yore a jalue, for euery/ayne a plaister, /euing on/y 

/oue remedi/esse.' P. 229 top ' So canne there be no contract ... no 

watch was went.' 

2. Transverse or alternate, where two, three, or four letters are 

used in corresponding clauses: 

e.g. P. 2521.17 ' to straight a dyet for thy strain'mge dzsease,' P. 2511.19 

'so weaken the jences, and bewitch the joule.' P. 233 'Although hetherto, 

Euphues, I haue brined thee in my heart for a /mstie triende, I will 

shunne thee hereafter as a trothles foe' (Landmann's Euphues, Intr. 

p. xvi). Vol. ii. p. 36 1. 33 ' let my mde birth excuse my bolde request.' 

P. 89 1. 1 ' thy sacred Senate of three hundred graue Counsellors, to a 

shamelesse Sinod of three thousand greedy craterpillers.' 

Both kinds, simple and transverse, are used either simply for 

ornament or euphony, or to accentuate parallelism or antithesis. 

The simple kind is naturally the most spontaneous; the transverse, 

far more rarely used, is generally conscious and deliberate, as seems 

clear from the fact that in several cases where it does occur it is used 

several times in succession 1 . 

As with Antithesis, so the pursuit of Alliteration leads him sometimes 

to use an ungainly or inappropriate word: e.g. 

1 Mr. Child, whom I am following closely here, notes that on p. 64 Arb. 

there are three cases in 6 lines, on p. 65 three, p. 67 three, p. 106 nine, pp. 204-5 

eight {John Lyly and Euphuism, p. 61).


P. 188 1. 34 ' that whiche I cannot wythoute Mishinge beholde, nor 

wythoute blubbering vtter.' 

P. 2101.7 'Who so is blinded with thecaule (=net) of beautie, decerneth 

no foulour of honestie'—here the desire of alliterating with ' coulour' 

betrays him into a mixed metaphor. 

P. 218 1.18 'I can neither quench them wyth the water of free will, 

neither cooXe them wyth w/sedome'—'free will' as an extinguisher is 

singularly infelicitous. 

P. 3141.32 ' custoxne will make it [i. e. the most quiet place] thy country, 

and an honest life will cause it a pleasaunte liuinge'—this awkward use of 

' cause' is perhaps rather to secure verbal change than alliteration. 

Vol. ii. p. 41 1. 27 ' old men which should be at their beads, be too busi.e 

with the court, & young men which should follow their bookes,' &c.— 

' beads' is sad from so fervent a Protestant. 

(ii) Syllabic or word-likeness : 

1. Complete: (1) of syllables, i.e. Consonance, where both vowel 

and consonant sounds are similar : 

e.g. P. 205 1.21'perfection...defection.' P. 2131.28 'enforcedperforce. 1 

P. 251 1.18 ' immoderate sleepe ... immodest play.' 

(2) Of words, i.e. Repetition, which reads at first like carelessness, 

but occurs too often to be-other than intentional— 

e. g. Vol. ii. p. 27 1. 27 ' a warning to make you wise, not a warning to 

proue others vnfortunate'; ib. 1. 33 ' to rest at their own home till they 

come to their long home,' P. 41 11. 25-9' Kings or Princes... in y e affaires 

of princes P. 185 1. 24 'so sweete a violet to his nose, that he could 

hardly suffer it to be an houre from his nose.' 

It is noticeable in regard to this habit of Repetition that in the 

editions of 1595 ? and 1597 (E 1 E 2 for Parti, E for Part II) it is carried 

still further, a repetition of a word used in the preceding clause being 

substituted for an antithetic or parallel word found in earlier editions : 

e.g. P. 2431.8 'neither the nature of a child nor the nurture (nature E) of 

a mayden.' VoL ii. p. 209 11. 6-7 ' As this noble Prince is endued with 

mercie, pacience and moderation, so is she adourned (indued E) with 

singuler beautie,' &c. 

Other instances are vol. ii. pp. 105 1.14,142 1. 29, 210 1.4, &c. As 

I trace Lyly's revising hand in this edition of either Part, I fancy this 

reaction from overmuch variety is due to himself. To our ears, however, 

the change of the word, when not forced, is just the strongest and 

soundest.feature of his style, and the last he should have dropped. 

2. Partial: (1) Assonance, or like vowel-sound only: 

e.g. P. 206 1. 19 'by so much the, lesse I am to be condemned, by how

VARIETIES OF WORD-LIKBNESS 

much the more Euphues is to be commended.' Vol. ii. p. 5 1.29 ' there to 

lap vp that he doth cast vp.' 

(2) Annomination, or like consonant-sound only: 

e.g. P. 190 I.16 'sophistrye . . . superioritie.' P. 186 1. 28 'Nurture 

.. . Nature' (also on pp. 191,192, 243). P. 235 1.10 'to see thee as hopelesse 

as my selfe is haplesse! P. 250 1.29 ' hot liuer .. . heedlesse louer' 

(also pp. 3211.22, vol. ii. 561.24). Pp. 1991. 22, vol. ii. 41. 35 ' continuance 

. . . countenaunce.' P. 321 1. 7 ' commaundement . . . amendement.' 

(3) Rhyme: 

P. 214 1. 6 'forged gloase .. . friendly cloase.' P. 241 1. 23 'I will to 

Athens ther to tosse my bookes, no more in Naples to lyue with faire 

lookes.' Vol. ii. p. 107 1. 5 ' wounded with grief... sounded with weakenesse,' 

and many others. 

(4) Puns and play on words: 

e.g. P. 190 'Stoickes .. . stocks.' P. 213 'yet would I willingly take 

euery minute x mates (at chess) to enioy Liuia for my louing mate.' 

P. 225 1. 35 ' mannors ... manners' (also pp. 267 1. 32, 317 1.12). P. 316 

1.26 ' want of learning .. . wanton lyuinge,' cf. vol. ii. p. 62 1. 32 ' I should 

hardly chuse a wanton : for ... if alwayes she want one when she hath 

me, I had as liefe she should want me too.' P. 325 1. 27 ' as wel Helen 

a light huswife in earth, as Castor a light Starre in Heauen.' Vol. ii, 

p. 155 1. 23 ' birds are trayned with a sweet call, but caught with a broad 

nette' (pun on 'caule' — net); p. 161 1. 12 'a Violette is better then 

a Rose, and so shee arose.' 

Among his most ingenious uses of word-play is the way in which, 

having used a word in one sense in the first member of a clause, he 

makes it do duty without verbal change in another sense, or as 

another part of speech, or with a different construction, in the second 

member: 

e.g. P. 217 ' I feare mee I am lyke to infect women with pride, whiche 

yet they haue not, and men with spyte, whyche yet I woulde not.' P. 219 

1. 35 'that he shoulde neyther take holde of hir promise, neyther unkindnesse 

of hir precisenesse.' P. 247 'as well the Rose to distill, as the 

Nettle to sting.' .P. 275 1. 15 ' the one careth not howe lyttle paine hee 

taketh for his moneye, the other howe little learning' ('taketh'= (1) 

spends, (2) acquires). P. 314 1. 17 ' out of farre countreys to Hue as well 

as in thine owne' ('out of in sense of getting a living out of). P.318 

1. 17 'thou arte borne not to lyue after thine owne luste, but to learne to 

dye, whereby thou mayste lyue after thy death.' Vol. ii. p. 101 1. 37 

'enuied for virtue and belyed for malice'; p. 150 1. 21 'thee who 

alwayes modest them (i. e. women) no worse then sancts in heauen, and

Euphues. 

E. andhis 

Eng. 

Logical 

connexion, 

Syntax. 


shrines in no worse place then thy heart ' ('them,' used as direct object 

in the first member, is understood as indirect object in the second). 

I will close this notice of Lyly's structural devices by reproducing 

Mr. Child's instructive table: 

Simple Allitn. 

Ornam 1 Transverse 

. Balance. Allit 

935 668 

1196 795 

n No. of 

. 

Consonance. Annominn, Rcpetitn. Rime. {Arber's) 

Pages. 

241 114 44 24 20 117 

112 48 24 38 9 268 

The vast excess of simple over transverse alliteration is obvious; 

and also, remembering that the Second Part is nearly twice the 

length of the first, the decrease in the use of these devices. 

On the larger structure of Lyly's periods Mr. Child (pp. 43-8) 

has some very just remarks, noting that i Lyly aims rather at an 

ostentatious symmetry of form than at logical continuity of thought. 

It is, indeed, in the detailed, rather than the general, presentment of 

thought that he achieves precision. ' Each thought with its suggestions 

is so long dwelt upon, and the similes, metaphors and illustrations 

which accompany it are so varied, and attract so much attention in 

themselves, that except one read with close attention, the effect is that 

of a rambling and disconnected discourse 1 .' Mr. Child (pp. 46-8) 

analyses the long speech of Eubulus (pp. 187-90) and shows it to be 

more logical and continuous than one would at first suppose. That 

Lyly did not neglect logic is clear, as well from his abundant use of 

terms like 'argument,' 'reasons,' 'prove,' 'infer,' &c, as from the 

systematic correspondence he sometimes observes between a written 

or oral reply and the letter or speech which it answers, e. g. Luciila 

and Euphues, pp. 239-40, Philautus and Camilla, vol. ii. pp. 104-6, 

Philautus and Euphues, pp. 143-6, &c. Nevertheless he is occasionally 

careless in this respect, and careless, too, in the matter 

of syntax. The omission of the pronoun as subject, as on p. 186, 

(mid.) 'Hauinge therefore gotten opportunitie . . . (he) encountred 

him,' &c, is a common Elizabethan idiom, under which we must 

class three cases of similar omission in the nominative absolute : 

P. 191 1. 24 ' (I) hauing shewed sufficient.' Vol. ii. p. 45 1. 16 ' and 

(he) ouerthrowne.' P. 194 1. 12 'In their meales there is great silence 

and grauitie, (they) vsing wine rather to ... than to,' &c. 

Common, too, is the omission of the verb 'to be,' as on p. 317 

1.9 ' nor (art) thou a gentleman' &c. (cf. vol. ii. pp. 411.34,1751.36); 

1 John Lyly and Euphuism, p. 47.

LOOSE SYNTAX 127 

and the substitution of a finite verb for a participle in a participial 

clause may pass under the same head : 

e. g. P. 303 1.4 ' Themistocles which hauing offended Philip y e king 

of Macedonia, & could no way apease his anger [for ' being in no way 

able to appease '], meeting his young sonne tooke him in his armes,' &c. 

Vol. ii. p. 33 1. 19 'those that hauing y e greene sicknes & are brought 

[for' being brought'] to deaths dore, follow their own humour,' &c. 

Far less excusable are—his loose use of the relative : 

e.g.Vol.ii. p. 28 1.2 'with that knife yt (= wherewith) another hath cut his 

finger.' P. 61 1. 34 'as the Trogloditae which (superfluous) digged in the 

filthy ground for rootes, and found the inestimable stone Topason, which 

inriched them euer after: so he that seeketh after my daughter ... shall 

finde.' &c. P, 96 1. 5 'which varietie of chaunging, being oftentimes 

noted of a graue Gentleman in Naples, who hauing bought a Hat of the 

newest fashion & best block in all Italy, and wearing it but one daye, it 

was tolde him y t was stale, he hung it vp in his studie,' &c. P. 109 1. 13 

' Psellus, of whome in Italy I haue hearde (that) in such cases (he) canne 

doe much,' &c. P. 137 1. 30 ' Camilla . .. went to hir Italian booke where 

shee founde the letter oiPhilautus, who (i.e. Camilla) without any further 

aduise . .. sent him thim bone to gnawe vppon.'P. 1601.16' inuited them 

both that night to supper, which they with humble thankes giuen 

promised to doe so ' &c. 

his hasty mingling of two forms : 

e. g. P. 223 1. 23 ' no meruaile it is that if the fierce Bull be tamed 

with the Figge tree, if that women beeing as weake as sheepe, be ouercome 

with a Figge,' &c. Vol. ii. p. 192 1. 32 ' Visitations are holden . . . 

whereby abuses and disorders . . . there are punyshements' (either ' for' 

should be supplied before'abuses,'or he should have written 'are punished'). 

Cf. p. 105 11.14-5 ' thinking it lawfully if one suffer you to treade awry, no 

shame to goe slipshad.' 

and occasional carelessnesses like these: 

Vol. ii. p. 42 1. 6 ' content your selues wt this, yt to be curious (= as 

for your curiosity) in things you should not enquire off, if you knew them, 

they appertein not vnto you'—but perhaps ' yt' is a misprint for ' not.' 

P. 203 11. 11-6 'Actiue they are .. . worthye of such Ladies, and none 

but they, and Ladies willing to haue such Lordes, and none but such,' 

P. 21011.14-5 ' Their fields (i. e. those of the English) haue beene sowne 

with come, straungers [have had] theirs pytched with Camps.' 

Ambiguity, too, rests on 

P. 2391.8 'it nothing toucheth me,' which is really constructed with what 

follows, but more naturally taken with what precedes ; and vol. ii. p. 1561.2


' (thou) art rewarded with nothing lesse then loue' i. e. with anything but 

love,' lesse' being adverb qualifying ' rewarded/ not adjective qualifying 

' thing.' 

I have quoted these instances of careless grammar because, amid 

the praise universally given to Lyly for precision, his fairly numerous 

slips in this direction have been overlooked. They are one of the 

penalties he paid for his preoccupation with the far more difficult 

matter of varied and ingenious phraseology. 

Vocabulary.—Finally, to round off this subject of Lyly's structural 

use of his instrument, we find|his English comparatively pure. Considering 

the large infusion of foreign terms, the free coinage of 

Latinisms, which the language was .undergoing at this period, Lyly 

deserves the praise of conservatism.] He has placed to his credit 

the acknowledgement that ' English men desire to heare finer speach 

then the language will allow,' p. 181 1.17 ; and while himself striving 

to gratify this taste for fineness, does so without debasing the currency. 

It is remarkable how few of his words have passed out of use, how 

much more modern his diction seems than that of most of his contemporaries. 

The explanation is, no doubt, .partly that suggested 

by Mr. Child 1. that works so famous as Euphues, Arcadia, and the 

Bible) exercise a very important influence on the destiny of the words 

which they contain. A very few Latinisms, not confined to him, 

have passed out of use: 

Pp. 236 1.22 ' arguest of = accusest of; 2461. 28 ' dehort' = dissuade; 

265 I.16 'argent' = money; 300 1. 30 ' abiect' = outcast; 303 1. 31, 

vol. ii. 25 1. 14, 35 1. 19 ' record' = remember. Vol. ii. 6 1. 32 ' table '= 

picture ; 19 1. 12 ' reduce' = bring back ; 31 1. 28, 661. 11,911. 26,162 1. 7 

'conferre' = compare; 39 1. 19 'preferring' = urging, pleading; 51 1. 3 

' contemplature' (also in Greene); 90 1. 8 ' resiluation' = resilience ; 94 

1. 5, 170 1. 31 ' sentence' = apophthegm, opinion ; 109 1. 28, 133 1. 15, 173 

1. 13 ' refell' = rebut; 147 1. 23 ' intention' = tightening .2 

A few words, Latin or other, are no longer used in the. sense in 

which he employed them : 

Pp. 1801.22' tollerable' = excusable ; 186' trayneth' intr. = ' is drawn' 

(no other instance quoted) ; 189 1.22 ' crazed'; 192 1.4 ' impe'; 196 l 3, 

321.2' occupied'; 2001.31' nippe'; 2021.13 ' rancke'; 204 1.25 (190 l. 23, 

321 I.26) 'peeuishnesse'; 204 1.35 'alteration' (in medical sense); 206 

1 John Lyly and Euphuism, p. 41. 

3 Of this literal sense no instance is quoted, nor any of just this absolute use of 

' preferring.' ' Reduce' is used by Shakespeare ; ' refell' bv him and Chapman. 

Of all the rest except' contemplature' examples are quoted before Euphues.

VOCABULARY 129 

1. 31' vnkynde'; (2491.7 ' kinde'); 225 1.12 'successe' = sequel; 2281.29 

' assuring' = affiancing; 241' tosse '; 2561. 23' dissolute ' (of attire) ; 262 

1.15 'soothe'; 325 1.10' tyre' = pull. Vol. ii. pp. 31.17 ' dissembling'; 15 

1. 5 ' fauour'; 28 1.12 ' bodkin'; 59 1.8 ' amiable' (of personal beauty); 57 

1. 34 (70 I.23, 119 1. 8) ' personage' = personal appearance; 228 1. 8 (cf. 

Sapho, i. 1. 41 and Pappe) ' yerke' or ' jerke' = strike smartly. 

A few phrases or constructions have become obsolete (see notes): 

Pp. 191 1.13 (209 1. 32, 321 1.7) ' haue no shew'; 193 1.11 ' eyther . . . 

eyther' = either ... or; 194 1.32 ' looke it' = look for it; 195 1. 2 ' good 

cheape'; 200 1.11 ' want gestures' ; 202 1.22'make course accomptof; 

1. 24 ' high in the insteppe'; 207 1. 29 (219 1. 22) ' til time '; 224 1. 31 

' chaunge your coppie'; 214 1. 25 (233 1.5) ' any ' = either (of two); 251 

1.24 ' at an ynche'; 253 1.13 ' water thy plantes.' Vol. ii. pp. 7 1.11 ' olde 

Helena'; 21 1.14 ' beare a white mouth'; 35 1.12 ' shake his ears '; 55 1.6 

(172 1.24) ' speak in your cast'; 58 1.2 ' sleepe compasse 3 (96 1.11 ' lyued 

compasse'); 92 1.26 'in a string'; no 1.2 ' seeke to you'; 194 1.34 

' striketh the stroke.' 

As also have the following words (see noites): 

Pp. 180 ' Fletcher'; 184 1. 30 (vol. ii. p. 34 l. 3) ' teenest'; 187 1. 13 

'cockering'; 1. 30 ' knottes'; 190 1. 28 ' carterly'; 191 1.12 ' haggardnes '; 

192 1. 22 (194, 250)'youthly'; 194 1.7 '.quatted'; 1.9 ' huddles '; 195 1.19 

'geason'; 196 (vol. ii.p. 23 1.21) 'cammock'; 1. 24 'pantuffles' or 'pantables'; 

197 1.25 'pheere'; 201 1.17 (vol. ii. pp. 44 I.3, 103 1.12) •' lyste' 

(subst.); 203 I.23 ' ouerthwartnesse' (cf. ' overthwarthes,' Life, p. 65); 

205 1.17 ' starter'; 208 1.2 (278 1.22, 280 1.1)' cockmate'; 2091.5 (246 1.9, 

309 1.20)' ouerlashing'; 210 1.7 ' caule'; 212 1.11 ' tainted' = ten-ted, kept 

open; 1.16 ' cullis'; 213 1.36 ' recured'; 217 1.23 ' round' = wfcisper; 

218 1.31 ' sterue' = die; 219 1.6 (220) ' sleekestone'; 224 1.3 ' owches'; 

226 1. 20 ' stale' = pretence ; 232 1. 4 ' flange' = flung ; 237 'glyeke,' 

' frumpe'; 239 1. 20 ' make' = mate ; 1. 22 ' powlt foot'; 249 1. 15 

' pinglers'; 253 11.14-17 ' pigsnie,'' mammering,'' sleeueless' ;= bootless; 

2 54 1. 34 ' slibber'; 255 1.7 ' shadows,' ' leefekyes'; 256 1. 33 ' manchet'; 

289 1. 21 'manuary' (adj.); 307 1. 5 ' aslake '; 307 1. 30 ' brawnefallen '; 

309 1.12 'skinneth' (intr., no other instance quoted); 310 1.24 ' melten' 

(no other inst.); 317 1. 5 (322 1.9,325 l• 13) ' blast ' = Wasted bud (no other 

inst.). Vol. ii. pp. 5 1-4, 139 1-9 ' cullyng'; 5 1.33 ' water-bough'; 91.24 

(i. 224 1. 4) ' caddis'; 16 1.1 ' tedding'; 17 1. 29 ' renting' = rending ; 

20 I.7 'grisping' (subst); 22 1.34 'affects'; 28 1. 25 'rase'; 31 1.20 

' seldome' (adj.); 311. 36 ' sised,'' nethermore'; 34 1.4' ymping'; 45 1.35 

' sequel' = subordinate; 501.31'lythernesse'; 53 1.12' striued'; 591.18 

' mych' = skulk, loiter; 601.15,135 1.25 ' claw'; 62 1.15 ' whist' (ptcp.); 

68 11. 8, 25 ' partlet,' ' manne' escort; 82 1.13 ' glorious'= boastful; 

94 1.24 ' force not' = care not for; 114 1.14 ' mockage'; 129 1.23 ' re- 

BOND I K

II. ORNA 

MENTAL 

DEVICES. 

I. Historicalallusion. 


storitie' (perhaps a misprint); 41 I.23 (139 1.18) 'malyce' (verb); 170 

I.22 'heedle'; 1741.13 'sew' = drain off; 212 1.18 'tickle' (adj.). 

But for the most part the language of Lyly is that we use to-day. 

The consonantal effects of English words assisted his alliterative 

purpose better than those of Latin; and this, united with his love 

and respect for his own tongue to make him set his face against the 

Italianizing of the language, the 'darke wordes' and 'inkhorne 

termes,' of which Ascham and Wilson had complained some thirty 

years before 1. In the words of Professor Ward 2 , ' he had too sound 

and too sincere a literary sense to Hispaniolise, Italianate, or Gallicise 

his English, either in vocabulary or syntax.' 

II. The second class of characteristics of Euphuism [those means 

of ornament and illustration which occupy a midway position between 

the matter and the manner of thought and have their sphere in 

both, may be divided into 

I[ Anecdotes of and allusions to historical personages, especially the 

Greek and Graeco-Roman painters :\ 

(a)[Authenticy derived from Plutarch, Pliny and other sources, e. g. 

p. 186 Romulus; p. 250 Agesilaus; p. 276 1.2 Chrysipptls and Melissa; 

p. 314 1.36 Zeno losing his wealth; p. 285 1.2 Apelles; pp. 296, 298 

Antiochus Epiphanes burning the copies of the Law. Vol. ii. p. 22 1.24 

Timanthes; p. 135 1.31 Protogenes; p. 159 1.14 Phrigius and Pieria. 

Here should be noted two historical inaccuracies, p. 303 l.4 Themistocles 

is made contemporary with Philip of Macedon, vol. ii. p. 13 1.28 Demosthenes, 

the orator, with Lais. In Eupkues, however, Lyly is very rarely 

guilty of anachronism (Athens and the Emperor of course are such, 

cf. below, pp. 155-6), whatever his offences in the plays. There is nothing 

at all comparable to Pettie's putting into the mouth of the classical 

Camma (in his first tale) allusions to the Countess of Salisbury and the 

Duchess of Savoy, anachronisms which he unblushingly avows in his 

prefatpry letter to ' R. B.' 

(b)[ Invented]wholly or in part : sometimes the personages seem wholly 

fictitious, e.g. p. 256 Asiarchus and Biarus; p. 257 1.34 Theocrita; vol. ii. 

pp. 102 I.37 Titus, Gysippus and Sempronia; ib. 1.12 the stranger before 

the two statues, and the poets Daretus, p. 94 1.11, and Mizaldus, p. 221 

1.21. Sometimes an imaginary story is told about a real personage, 

after the model of doings or sayings of theirs which are authenticated, 

e.g. pp. 179, vol. ii. 204 Parrhasius; pp. 179, vol. ii. 42 Apelles; vol. ii. p. 3 

Phidias; p. 51.18 Accius; 23 1.7 Roscius dumb with Cato (=Lyly dining 

1 Ascham's Toxophilus (1545), p. 18, ed. 1868; Wilson's Art ofRetorique (1553). 

2 English Dramatic literature (2nd cd. 1899), i. 277.

HISTORY, MYTH, NATURAL HISTORY 131 

with Lord Burleigh?); p. 39 I.4 Caesar; p. 601.9 Aristippus and Lais; 

sometimes Lyly embroiders a real story with imaginary details, e.g. p. 262 

1. 11 Diophantus; vol. ii. p. 77 1.25 Praxiteles and his statue of Flora. 

Lyly's habit of heaping up illustrations sometimes leads him to add to 

one authentic instance one or two imaginary ones, e.g. p. 184 Helen's 

scar, which looks authentic, though I cannot find it, suggests 'Aristippus 

his wart, Lycurgus his wenne,' for which I believe there is no authority 

at all; p. 188 the instance about the Lacedaemonians, which is from 

Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus, c. 28, leads us on to purely imaginary 

customs of the Persians and the Parthians; and vol. ii. p. 94 1. 9 the real 

poet Choerilus is followed by the imaginary Daretus. 

2.[Allusions to classical mythology,]draLwn from Ovid, Virgil, Hygi- 2. Mythonus,&c, 

and sometimes simply stolen from Pettie, or else invented : logical 

e.g. p. 189 Syrtes and Symplegades; p. 231 Myrrha, Byblis and 

Phoedra; p. 235 contest for the arms between Ajax and Ulysses; p. 243 

daughters of Danaus; vol. ii. p. 97 1. 4 Achilles' shield tossed to the tomb 

of Ajax; p. 142 1. 32 Cerberus and Orpheus; p. 150 1.13 Mercury and 

Vesta (invented). 

As in the case of the similes these allusions are sometimes introduced 

for mere display or simply from habit, and do not really illustrate the 

point in hand, e. g. vol. ii. p. 37 1.2 Thersites, Damocles, &c, where the 

point to be proved is that noble behaviour is a sign of noble birth, not 

that ignoble behaviour negatives such an idea; p. 86 1.35 'When thy 

disease is so daungerous ... when neither Ariadne's thrid, nor Sibillas 

bough, nor Medeas seede, may remedy thy griefe'; p. 159 1.16 Pigmalion 

affords no parallel at all. Philautus, however, points this out on the 

following page. 

3. [The introduction of recondite knowledge of all kinds]e.g. of ,3. Natural 

medicine (vol. ii. pp. 94 1. 34, 100 1. 2, 101 1. 3, and everywhere), histstor&c. 

of magic (pp. 115-8), his incorporation of part of the descriptions of 

Britain by Caesar (pp. 31-2) and Harrison (pp. 191-6), and above all 

the famous similes from natural history, mostly drawn from Pliny, but 

a few from other sources, while some are manifest inventions of his 

own 1, and others seem to be reported from his personal observation 

or from popular belief. A taste for knowledge of this kind had been 

diffused in earlier days by the Bestiaries, which afforded example of 

the application of physical facts to moral and religious relations; 

in a later by the Physiologi, which were read as text-books in the 

schools 2 , by Bartholomaeus de Glanvilla's De Proprietatibus Rerum, 

1 Gabriel Harvey says: ' I could name the party, that in comparison of his own 

indentions, termed Plmy a barren wombe,' Advertisement to Papp-hatchett 

(Grosart's Harvey's Works, ii. 126). 

2 Courthope's History of English poetry, ii. 198, 

K2


translated by Trevisa in 1397, and beautifully printed by Berthelet 

in 1535, and by illustrated works like the Ortus Sanitatis1, compiled 

chiefly from the German of J. von Cube—like Conrad Gesner's 

Historia Animaliutn*, which Topsell followed in his Historie of 

Foure-footed Beastes, 1607—like Edward Fenton's Certaine secrete 

Wonders of Nature, 1569, 4 0 , or like The boke of secretes of Albartus 

Magnus, of the vertues of Herbes, stones and certaine beastes, &c, 

printed in black letter, 8vo, by William Copland, perhaps in 1560. 

Lyly went straight to the prime source for all this true and fabulous 

matter, namely the Natural History of Pliny, of which no English 

translation existed before that of Philemon Holland, in two folio 

volumes, London, 1601. 

Examples of his similes are— 

From Pliny, &c. 

P. 191 'the stone Abeston' (perhaps rather from Bartholomaeus 

Anglicus) 

205 ' Eagles wing wasting the fethers,' &c. 

232 'the fish Scolopidus ' (Pseudo-plutarchea—De Fluviis, vi) 

247 ' the hearb Nerius' 

249 great things done by rabbits, moles, frogs and flies (perhaps 

from Geoffrey Fenton) 

250 'Hiena' (perhaps from Bartholomaeus Anglicus) 

282 ' Panther' (perhaps from Bartholomaeus Anglicus) 

vol. ii. 138 1.19 Dragons feeding on elephant's blood 

144 1.11 Crocodile and Trochilus 

181 1.19 'riuer Gallus ' 

invented 

P. 204 ' stone of Sicilia' (' Sciiitia,' Pettie) 

222 ' hearbe Araxa' and' stone in Mt. Tmolus,' enemy and protector 

of chastity respectively 

vol. ii. 85 1.16 'riuer in Arabia which turneth golde to drosse&dust to siluer.' 

personally observed 

P. 208 the dog eating grass to make him vomit 

vol. ii. 147 1.19 wine poured into fir vessels poisonous 

1571.24 dog spoiling his scent by nosing carrion 

popular superstition 

vol. ii. 52 1.28 wearing the eye of a weasel in a ring (not a simile). 

Those actually traceable to Pliny are, however, by far the most numerous, 

as my notes will show. 

It was these similes, their number and strangeness, that chiefly 

1 

The British Museum contains a fol. ed. publ. Strasburg [1490?], and another 

dated 1491. 

' 1st ed. in 5 vols. fol. richly illustrated, Zftrich, 1551, and ed. Frankfort, 1620.

THE SIMILES 133 

attracted contemporary attention; and soon called forth cavil, of 

which I quote some leading instances below 1: but it is hardly correct 

to assert, as Professor Ward does, that Lyly ' takes no trouble to 

assimilate his facts or fancies to the circumstances under which he 

applies them.' This is true only of a minority, e. g. 

1 Sidney, Apologie for Poetrie (writt. 1581-5, publ. 1595): 'So is that honnyflowing 

Matron Eloquence, apparelled, or rather disguised, in a Curtizan-like 

painted affectation. ... I would this fault were only peculier to Versefiers, and 

had not as large possession among Prose-printers. . .,. For nowe they cast Sugar 

and Spice vpon euery dish that is serued to the table; Like those Indians, not 

content to weare eare-rings at the fit and natnrall place of the eares, but they 

will thrust Iewels through their nose and lippes, because they will be sure to be 

fine. . . . Now for similitudes, in certaine printed discourses, I thinke all Herbarists, 

all stories of Beasts, Foules, and Fishes, are rifled vp, that they come in multitudes, 

to waite vpon any of our conceits; which certainly is as absurd a surfet to the eares, 

as is possible : for the force of a similitude, not being to prooue anything to a 

contrary Disputer, but onely to explane to a willing hearer, when that is done, 

the rest is a most tedious pratling: rather ouer-swaying the memory from the 

purpose whereto they were applyed, then any whit informing the iudgement, 

already eyther satisfied, or by similitudes not to be satisfied' (pp. 68-9, ed. Arber). 

So in the third sonnet of Astrophel and Stella (published 1591 but written at 

various times in the preceding twelve years), he says he cannot— 

'with strange similes enrich each line 

Of herbs, or beasts, which Ind or Afnc hold.' 

Nash, Epistle prefixed to Greene's MeAaphon, 1589 : 'shaped in a new suite of 

similitudes, as if, like the eloquent apprentice of Plutarch, it were propped at seuen 

yeares end in double apparell' (p. 27, ed. Arber). 

Harvey, Advertisement for Papp-haicheit (dated 1589, publ. with Pierce's Super' 

erogation, 1593): ' I cannot stand nosing of candlesticks or Euphuing of similes alia 

Savoica : it might happily be done with a trice: but every man hath not the gift of 

Albeitus Magnus: rare birds are dainty, and they are queint creatures that are 

privileged to create new creatures. When I have a mint of precious stones, and 

strange fowls, beasts, and fishes, of mine own coining (I could name the party, that, 

in comparison of his own natural inventions, termed Pliny a barren womb), I may, 

peradventure, bless you with your own crosses, and pay you with the usury of y r 

own coin.' (Grosart's Harvey, ii. 126.) 

The author of The Returne from Parnassus v. 2 (circ. 1600): ' There is a 

beaste in India call'd a polecatt, that the further shee is from youe the less she 

stinks, and the further she is from you the less you smell her. This dry cuntrie 

is that polecatt,' &c. (p. 72, ed. Macray). 

Shakespeare's parody, reproducing the simile of the camomile, 1 Henry IV, ii. 4. 

438-61: ' Hany, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how 

thou art accompanied : for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the 

faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears. ... If then 

thou be son to me, here lies the point; why, being son to me, art thou so pointed 

at ? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat blackberries ? a question 

not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief and take purses ? a 

question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of and 

it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch: this pitch, as ancient writers 

do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest: for, Harry, now I do not 

speak to thee in drink but in tears, not in pleasure but in passion, not in words 

only, but in woes also' (see Dr. Schwan's comments quoted below, p. 150 note). 

Drayton: ' Of Poets and Poesie' among his Elegies, 1627, praises Sidney in that he 

'did first reduce 

Our tongue from Lillie's writing then in use; 

Talking of Stones, Stars, Plants, of Fishes, Flyes, 

Playing with words, and idle Similies.'

134 


P. 185 'Heere (i.e. in Naples) my youthe (whether for werinesse hee 

coulde not, or for wantonesse . . .) determined to make hys abode: 

whereby it is euidently seenp that the fleetest fishe swalloweth the delicatest 

bayte, that the highest soaring Hawke trayneth to the lure,' &c.; where 

the first about the fish is .quite beside the point; and the second, being an 

instance of discipline, is the reverse of apposite. 

Vol. ii. p. 183 1. 36 'For as the stone Draconites can by no meanes 

be polished -vnlesse the Lapidarie bume it, so the mind of Camilla can 

by no meanes be cured,,except Surius ease it'; where there seems no 

analogy at all between the burning of the stone and Surius' return of 

Camilla's affection, and only a very strained one between the stone 

receiving a polish and Camilla attaining ease of mind. 

But all the instances cited above, p. 132, are fairly applicable to 

the matter they illustrate, except perhaps that of the eagle's wing on 

p. 205 ; and evidence of Lyly's care in this respect may be found in 

his occasional change of the form by which they are introduced, substituting 

for 'as . . .' or 'like . . ..,' 'not unlike' or as in that of 

the dragons on vol. ii. p. 138 1. 18 'not farre differing from,' where 

he feels the simile to be rather strained. The real fault of the similes, 

whether'false or true, is that they are used in gross excess. The 

right criticism is that of Sidney, just quoted in the note, that similes 

do not prove, but only explain (and, it should be added, adorn); 

and that an accumulation of them merely .distracts the attention, and 

confuses the memory, without assisting the judgement. 

4. Proverbs. 4[jThe perpetual introduction of proverbs and pithy sayings, to 

whicn an antithetic, alliterative style peculiarly lends itself.] They 

are drawn from the ancient authors, from current collections such as 

the Adagia of Erasmus or John Hey wood's Proverbes and Epigrams, 

or from the popular speech of his day: e. g. 

P. 180 'The Shomaker must not go aboue his latchet' (='Ne sutor 

ultra crepidam,' Pliny, xxxv. 36). 

P. 185 ' witte ... better if ... deerer bought' (Sharman's reprint of 

Hey wood's Prov,erbes, p. 31). 

P. 251 ' as Seneca reporteth... as to much bending breaketh the bowe, 

so to much remission spoileth the minde.' 

Vol. ii. p. 83 1.7 ' Wine is the glasse of the mind' (Erasmus' Adagia, 

p. 368, ed. 1666). 

P. 811.13 'fishe and gestes in three dayes are stale' (see note). 

P. 1341.36 'a Prouerb in Italy, whS one seeth a woman striken in age 

to looke amiable ... she hath eaten a Snake.' 

P. 28 1.30 ' neither penny nor Pater noster' 

lb. 1. 35 ' comming home by weeping crosse,'

ITALIAN INFLUENCE 135 

The question how far Lyly was original in his Euphuism, will form Origin of 

our natural transition to the discussion of the sources from which he Euphuism 

drew matter for his romance.[ It has been repeatedly pointed out 

that the effort after elaboration of which Euphues represents the 

culminating point, is an outcome of the Renaissance; that all this 

attention to fineness, eloquence, and pomp of phrase is a general 

result of the revived study of the classics, and of the balanced 

oratorical prose, of Cicero and Seneca, in particular]-a reflection, 

in fact, of that preoccupation with style which marked the fifteenthcentury 

humanists in Italy. It has further been noted that the 

travel which took Englishmen of rank or affairs to Italy brought 

them into direct contact with Italian culture, and notably with 

the worship of Petrarch at Florence, on whose model the poetry 

of Wyatt and Surrey is chiefly founded, in its use of conceits, of 

alliteration, of the eternal subject of love, of the sonnet-form. 

Florence, and the Platonic Academy founded there by the Medici, 

exercised a potent influence on all the literature of the time, an 

influence which Mezieres traces in the title and some points of 

conduct of Euphues itself, e. g. in the supper at Lucilla's house 1. 

Italian custom is still more markedly present in the Second Part, 

where Lyly dedicates himself more unreservedly to the delineation 

of polite society, e. g. the house of Fidus' father, vol. ii. pp. 54-5, 58, 

63, the pomegranate, p. 125 1. 2, the copy of Petrarch, p. 129, the 

gar4en-|talk, pp. 133 sqq., and the long discussion at Lady Flavia's supper-party, 

pp. 162 sqq. These Italian fashions, which first appeared in 

literature in Boccaccio's Filocopo (written about 1339, ' Englished by 

H. G. 1567'), had obtained a wider circulation through Castiglione's 

Il Cortegiano (Venice, 1528; translated by Sir Thomas Hoby, 1561), 

and were of course copied extensively in the higher social life of 

England, as elsewhere 2 : and copied, too, was the fashion of ripe 

and dainty speech. Miss Aikin's Memoirs of the Court of Elizabeth 

(1823) gives several pronouncedly Euphuistic speeches made at the 

reception of the French Embassy in 1581, and calls attention to 

the antithetic style of Elizabeth's earfy letters 3 . .So that [both in his 

1 ' La, comme c'etait l'usage a Athenes, comme le fait Platon dans le Banquet, 

et comme on le faisait a l'academie platonicienne de Florence, on met sur le tapis 

une question d'amour ou de science.' Les Pridtcesseurs et Contemporains de 

Shakespeare, ch. iii. p. 60. 

2 Compare the picture of courtly custom Ben Jonson gives in Cynthia's Revels, 

1600. 

3 Child's John Lyly and Euphtfism, p. 14. On pp. 104-5 he qnotes, from the 

same source (Aikin, i. p. 101) a letter of Elizabeth to Edward VI, who had asked

136 


peculiar style, and in some points of his handling, Lyly possessed 

some model in the actual life of his day.] In style, however, it would 

be obviously impossible that the resemblance could be more than 

slight: no conversation, it is safe to say, could really be maintained 

in words demanding anything like the wit and forethought and precision 

that mark Lyly's euphuism; and for this we must look rather 

to literary models. Of these he had two in especial; in one of 

which he found partly an exemplar of style, but far more of treatment 

and subject-matter, in the other a complete model of style, which he 

follows with hardly any, if any, addition. The first is Sir Thomas 

North's The Diall of Princes, 1557; the second, George Pettie's 

Pallace of Pleasure, 1576. 

To repeat an oft-told tale, North's Diall is a translation, through 

the French, of the famous work of the Spanish historiographer, 

Antonio de Guevara, bishop of Guadix, the earliest authorized 

edition of which appears to be the handsome folio containing three 

books, published at Valladolid by Nicolas Tierri in 1529 ! . Guevara's 

for her picture, written in 1552, seven years before the first edition of North's Diall: 

e.g. ' My picture I mean: in which if the inward good mind toward your grace 

might as well be declared as the outward face and countenance shall be seen, 

I would not have tarried the commandment, but prevented it, nor have been the 

last to grant but the first to offer it. ... Of this also yet the p.oof could not be 

great, because the occasions have been so small; notwithstanding, as a dog hath 

a day, so may 1 perchance have time to declare it in deeds, which now I do write 

them but in words.' 

1 The title runs as follows: Libto del emperador Marco aurelio co relox de 

principes: auctor del qual es el obispo de Guadix: nueuamente reuisto por sti 

seffona—while the colophon gives the date, publisher and place of publication as 

follows: ' Acabose [finished] en la muy noble villa de valladolid: por maestre 

Nicolas tierri impresor de libros. A ocho dias d'Abril de mil &jquinientos & xxix 

Anlos.' (Brit. Mus. 8007. g.) 

The words 'nueuamente reuisto por su sernoria' imply a previous edition, which 

was probably unauthorized. A quarto copy of some such ed., also dated 1529, exists 

in the British Museum (521. e. 4), with lhe following title: Libro Aureo de Marco 

Aurelio: emperador: y elpquentissimo orador. Nueuamente impresso. The colophon 

runs: ' Fue impresso en la triunfante villa de Enueres por loannes Grapheus. 

Anio del Sefior de mill E quinientos E veynte E nueue. Acabose a diez dias del 

mes de Enero [January].' This Enueres copy differs from that of Valladolid (1) 

in omitting the elaborate Table of Contents which precedes the Prologue in the 

latter, (2) it has a brief ' Prologo' of only 2 J quarto leaves as opposed to the 

long ' Prologo general' of 13^ folio leaves of the Valladolid ed. (3) Whereas in 

the Valladolid ed., Bk. i. has 47 chapters, Bk. ii. has 40, Bk. iii. 57, and there an 

end, the Enueres ed. is not divided into books at all, but simply runs for 48 chaps, 

with headings different to those of the authorized ed., and then concludes with 19 

letters from Marcus Aurelius to various persons, a few of which are embodied in 

the text of the Third Book of the Valladolid ed., while the rest are added to the 

work only in a later edition. 

Brunet {Manuel de Libraire, vol. iii), quoted by Landmann in his Euphues, 

p. xvii, says : ' Ces deux editions de 1529 sont les plus anciennes que nous connais 

sions de cet ouvrage. Cependant, selon M. Haliam (Lit. of Europe, ed. Paris, iv. 

377) Tuition de Valladolid ne serait pas la premiere, car le Marco Aurelio aurait

GUEVARA AND NORTH 137 

work was translated into French by Rene Bertaut, successive editions 

of whose version appeared in 1531, 1534, 1537, 1538, 1542, &c. 

From the first of these Lord Berners, at the request of his nephew, 

Sir Francis Bryan, made the first English translation, entitled, The 

Golden boke of Marcus Aurelius. It was completed March 10, 1532, 

though not published before 1534, a year or more after Lord Berners' 

death. Mr. G. C. Macaulay, in his introduction to the Globe 

Froissart, p. xvii, says, ' At least twelve editions of this book [i. e. 

The Golden boke'] are recorded between 1534-60, and there can be 

no doubt that the credit of making Guevara known in England must 

be assigned to Lord Berners rather than to North.' 

But it is North's version from which Lyly borrows. It appeared 

in 1557, with the following title :— 

The Diall of Princes. Compiled by the reuerende father in God, 

Don Anthony of Gueuara, Bysshop of Guadix. Preacher and 

Cronicler to Charles the fyft Emperour of Rome, Englysshed oute of 

the Frenche, by Thomas North, seconde sonne of the Lorde North. 

Ryght necessary and pleasaunt, to all gentylmen and others whiche are 

louers of vertue. Anno 1557. F Imprinted at London by John 

Waylande. Cum priuilegio, ad imprimendum solum per septennium. 

Fol. (Brit. Mus. C. 54. f. 15). 

At the end of the Third Book are printed some letters of 

Marcus Aurelius (forming chaps. 58-73) with the following heading 

* Here followeth the letters (which were not in the Frenche Copye) 

conferred with the originall Spanishe copye,' some of which agree 

in title with some of those printed at the end of the unauthorized 

Spanish edition of 1529, though Guevara did not include them in 

the authorized edition of that date. 

The second edition of The Diall of Princes is the folio of Tottill 

and Marshe, 1568, the title of which announces as part of the 

contents an amplification also of a fourth booke annexed to the same, 

Entituled The fauored Courtier, neuer heretofore imprinted in our 

vulgar tongue, which Fourth Book, inserted immediately after Book iii. 

and before the Letters, is a translation of another work of Guevara, 

Libro Llamado Aviso de Privados y Doctrina de cortesanos l . 

d'abord paru, sans le consentement de 1'auteur, a Seville, et atissi en Portugal; ce 

qui aurait determine" Guevara a donner lui-meme, en 1529, une Edition fort augmented 

et contenant de plus le Relox de p.' 

1 Other works of Guevara translated into English were (1) the Libro Llamado 

Menosprecio del Cortey Alabama de AIdea, translated by Sir Francis Bryan, 1548, 

with title A Dispraise of the life of a Courtier and a commendacion of the life of 

the labouryng man. {Out of Castilian dtawen into Frenche by Antony Alaygre


A third edition of The Diall was issued in 1582 (4 0 ), another in 

1619 fol. 

Dr. Landmann maintains 1 that Lyly's Euphuism is an adaptation 

from Guevara, whose alto estilo (imitating, appropriately to the 

person of his hero Marcus Aurelius, the balanced structure of Latin 

orators) exhibited many of Lyly's special marks, such as the parallelism 

of sentences, the marking of corresponding words by consonance and 

rhyme, antithesis, and rows of similes taken however from nature 

rather than Pliny. Landmann, however, of course acknowledges 

the intervention of North and Pettie, with the addition of alliteration; 

saying, indeed, of the latter author that his book ' exhibited already, 

to the minutest detail, all the specific elements of Euphuism.' 

Indeed, whatever Guevara's share in inducing in England a style, 

the like of which appeared in several countries about the same time, 

it is essential to emphasize the far closer resemblance to Euphuism 

in the case of North and Pettie. North endeavoured, what Berners 

had not aimed at, to reproduce in his Diall the characteristics of 

Guevara's style, with the notable addition of an alliteration natural to 

English and not to Spanish; and it is he who must be regarded as 

the real founder of our euphuistic literary fashion. But even in 

North alliteration is not profusely used, and the similes from natural 

history are comparatively rare. Whatever Lyly's debt to The Diall 

in point of subject-matter, he owes little to it directly in point of 

style. In Pettie, on the other hand, who indeed owes much of his 

manner to North, we have an exact model of the style of Euphues: 

and whereas the latter presents few close resemblances of diction to 

The Diall, it occasionally appropriates sentences from Pettie with 

scarce any change of form or substance 2 . The title of Pettie's book, 

which though undated was entered on trie Stationers' Register to 

Richard Watkyns, under date Aug. 6, 1576 3 , runs as follows:— 

A Petite Pallace of Pettie his pleasure: Containing many pretie 

Histories, by him set foorth in comely colours, and most delyghtfully 

discoursed, Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci. 

and now out of the Frenche toungue into our maternal laguage by sir Fraunces 

Btyant.) In adibus R. Graftpni: Londini 1548. 8°. It was reprinted in 1575 as 

A Lookingglasse for the Court. (2) Epistolas familiarest translated by Sir Geoffrey 

Fenton, 1577, as Golden Epistles . . . gathered as well out of the remainder of 

Gueuaraes woorhes, as other Authottrs, &c. 1577. 4 0 . (3) the Chronicle, conteyning 

the lives of tenne Emperors of Home, as translated by E. Hellowes in the same 

year, 1577. 

1 Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, 1880-5, P art II• 

2 See my notes on pp. 181, 197, 198, 201, 202, 205, 222, 240, &c. 

3 Arber's Transcript, vol. ii. p. 301,

EXACT MODEL OF STYLE IN PETTIE 139 

The colophon is merely ' Printed at London, by R. W.' 

This collection of twelve stories, which went through five or, 

according to Hazlitt, six editions by 1613, and was obviously 

familiar to Lyly, contains instances of every one of the structural 

characteristics enumerated above as Lyly's, and of the classical 

allusions, the natural history similes, and the proverbs also. It presents 

also other striking resemblances of treatment. I will give a few 

examples, in the order adopted above for Lyly, referring to the pages 

of Pettie's first edition (1576,) and the folios pf his second (1586). 

I. (a) i. Parisonic antithesis: Parallel 

' But if hereafter in deedes I shall see as playne proufe of perfect good- pettir's 

will, as your wordes import likelyhood of ernest loue, perchaunce I shal style. 

bee as zelous to cast liking towardes you, as now I am ielous to cast I. Struc- 

doubtes of you, 5 p. 67 (fol. 32 V.). 

' I see it is some mens fortune not to be beleeued when they speake 

truly, and others to bee well thought of when they deale falsely: which 

you haue verified in your husbande and mee, who doubte of my wordes 

which are true, and not of his deedes which are false ... for I knowe it 

commonly to bee so, that trauaylers wordes are not much trusted, neither 

great matters soone beleeued,' p. 163 (fol. 68 r.). 

ii. Rhetorical questions •' 

(The princess Scilla soliloquizes on her love for Minos) 'And shall 

I then preferre mine owne pleasure before my fathers profit ? why euery 

one ought to be nerest to them selues, and their wisdome is nothing 

worth which are not wise for them selues. Nay rather shall I preferre the 

commodytie of King Minos befqre the commodytie of King Nysus ? why 

Nysus is my father: why Minos will be my Phere: why Nysus gaue me 

lyfe: Why Minos wyll yeelde mee loue : Why Nysus macfc mee a maide : 

Why Minos wil make mee a mother: Why Nysus cherised mee beeinge 

young: Why Minos wyll make mutch of mee beeinge olde : why Nature 

bindeth mee to loue my father: why God commaundeth mee to loue my 

husband,' &c. p. 133 (fol. 57 v.). Cf. also p. 15 (fol. 12 v.). 

iii. Repetition is even more abundant than in Euphues, Pettie having 

less resource or less care in varying his form, e. g. Lyly would not so 

long have continued the form ' Why. .' in the example just given. 

(b) i. Alliteration; 

I. Simple: ' in my fancy that man is to begged for aybole who will 

prefer his wiues pleasure be/ore his owne and her profite,* &c. p. 63 

(fol. 31 r.); 'shee assayed the assistaunce pf reason, the pollky of 

perswations, the telpe of herbes, and the weane of medicines, to mortify 

her beastly desire to the beast,' &c. p. 186 (fol. 77 v.). 

tural


2. Transverse: ' though you for gayn flee no /ilthynesse, that I for 

glory folowe nofaythfulnesse,' p. 13 (fol. 9 v.) ; 'greate mciuility and 

thfcurlishnesse ... great /wbecillity and childishnesse,' p. 63 (fol. 31 r.). 

ii. Syllabic or word-likeness: 

1. Complete (1) of syllables, i. e. Consonance: ' as the hope of obtayning 

... heauexh mee vp to heauen,' p. 40 (fol. 22 r.); ' neuer inioy him with 

ioye,' p. 105 (fol. 46 V.). 

(2) Of words, i. e. Repetition: ' to indeuour to vndoe the destinies and 

disappointe the appointment of the goddes, shewing themselues traitours 

to the goddes,' p. 111 (fol. 49 r.); Therefore (good wife) giue mee leaue 

to die, to whom it wil bee onely good and easy to die,' p. 116. 

2. Partial (1) Assonance: 'to pleade for release and releeie,' p. 9 

(fol. 4r.); 'so warely w^cht by her waspish parents,' p. 155 (fol. 66r.); 

' as selous to cast liking towardes you, as now I am ielous to cast doubles 

of you,' p. 67 (f. 32 v.). 

(2) Annomination: ' as by holy oth I bounde my fayth ... so only my 

death shal dissolue that bond,' p. 66 (f. 32 r.); ' wayliuMy and w/'/fully,' 

p. no. 

(3) Rhyme 1 'in him sutch deuilish desire, in her sutch reuengful ire, in 

him sutch hellish heat, in her sutch haggish hate,' p. 38 (f. 21 r.); 'euery 

dram of delyght hath a pound of spyght, and euery inch of toy, an el of 

annoy, annexed to it,' p. 83 (f. 38 v.). 

(4) Puns and word-play: ' forced him to depart without manifesting 

vnto her the mantiolde good will hee bare her,' p. 102 (f. 46r.); 'what 

passe I (=care I) to passe a thousande perils to pleasure you ? 5 p. 108 

(f. 48 r.). And for more elaborate play take the following in Admetus 

and Alcest, p. 118,' Meethinkes I heare my wish, wishe mee sutch a wife 

as I tiaue spoken of, .verily (good wish) you wish your wealth great 

wealth, and God make mee worthy of you, wish, and your wishe, and if 

I might haue my wish I am perswaded you should haue your wish.' Cf. 

Lyly's passage playing on 'glasse,' vol. ii. pp. 189-90. 

II. Onia- II. 1. Anecdotes historical or imaginary do not occur, or at least 

mntaL abound, in Pettie. . 

2. Allusions to classical mythology (from which the tales themselves 

are mostly drawn), e.g. Philemon and Baucis, p. 115, others p. 118. 

3. Similes, seldom drawn be it observed from Pliny, and not 

invented, but from simple facts in natural history, or from men's 

daily avocations; nor are they nearly so numerous as in Lyly: 

e. g. ' As the earth draweth dounward because it is heavy, the fyre 

flyeth vpward because it is. light, the water contrarie to it nature oftentimes 

ascendeth to the top of high hyls to avoyde vacantnesse,' &c. p. 135 

(f.58v.).

CORRESPONDENCE IN TREATMENT 

' As a boate borne by the tide against the winde, feeleth double force, 

and is compeld to yielde both to winde and waue, so this young prince 

driuen by the force of loue againste the minde and pleasure of his father, 

felte double doulour,' p. 107 (f. 47 v.). 

' As the phisition first ministreth to his patient bitter pilles and purgations 

to expell grose and ill humours, and then applieth lenitiues and 

restoratiues to breede and bringe againe good bloud,'p. 104 (f. 46 v.). 

' For as the Larketaker in his day Net hath a glasse whereon while the 

birdes sit and gaze, they are taken in the Net, so your face hath sutch a 

glistering glasse of goodlynesse in it,' &c. p. 137 (f. 59 r.). 

4. Proverbs: 

' those which woorst may, are driven to holde the Candle,' f. 65 r. and 

Euphues, p. 201. 

' For the increase is smal of seede to timely sowen, the whelps are euer 

blind that dogges in hast do get, the fruites ful soone do rot which 

gathered are to soone, the mault is neuer sweete, vnlesse the fyre be soft, 

& he that leapeth before he looke, may hap to leape into y e brooke,' 

p. 157 (f. 67 r.). 'But the old saying is, haste maketh waste, and 

bargaines made in speede, are commonly repented at leasure,' ib. Cf. 

p. 104 (f. 46 V.). 

III. Further, there is a marked correspondence in treatment III. Mr. 

between Lyly and Pettie, a matter wherein the latter betrays his debt ihods °f 

J J » 1 • treatment. 

to North. In Guevara' s work action occupies a very subordinate subordi 

place: it is the philosophic reflections of the Emperor with which he nate place 

is really concerned, and the various situations and personages are assignedP 

imagined merely as pegs for moral discourse. In Pettie and Lyly 

action is more prominent, but still of very minor importance, 

especially in Euphues, Part I. Events of the utmost moment to 

the tale are sometimes dismissed in a few curt words. Instances 

from Pettie are Tereus, fol. 21 r., Eriphile, fol. 36 r., Appius, fol. 44 r., 

Scilla, fol. 57 v.: from Lyly, p. 217 Ferardo's hurried visit, necessary to get 

Philautus out of the way, made more hurried by its casual relation; p. 199 

11.15-17' hauing banqueted... they daunced all y afternoone: they vsed 

not onely one boord, but one bedde, one booke,' passing without notice 

from the detail of one day to a general course of life; p. 219 ' she fedde 

him indifferently . . . fell to sucHe agreement,' &c. These few words 

inserted in the middle of their long speeches save much narrative later on; 

p. 237 the summary narration of Euphues'jilting—if we look back over the 

tale we find he has only seen Lucilla twice before altogether; p. 245 the 

summary announcement of Ferardo's death; p. 286 the brief paragraph 

in which Euphues' career at Athens is dismissed. Occasionally reference 

is made to something for which the actual narrative has hardly left room, 

e. g. p. 238' Yet I spared not in all places to blaze thy loialtie.


That the defect soon became apparent to Lyly is clear from his 

occasional efforts in the second edition to remedy such abruptness, 

e.g. pp. 216-7 (and cf. what is said Bibliography, pp. 107-8, about the 

insertions in T), and by the marked improvement of Part II in this 

respect, though even there the tale is bungled up hurriedly at the 

close, vol. ii. p. 228. All this betrays the utter immaturity of the 

novelist's art, which has not yet recognized the relative importance 

of the different means of evoking interest. The object both 

Set dis. of Pettie and of Lyly is not so much to tell a story as to discourse 

on set themes, especially such as are connected with love; and 

accordingly the bulk of either's work is made up of long speeches 

and soliloquies, laments and 'passions' by the personages of the 

story, introduced by similar phrases: 

Asides to 

the reader. 

e. g. (Pettie) 'entreth into these termes' fol. 1 v. 'departed into her 

chamber by her selfe, to thinke more of the matter: where she entred 

with her selfe into these contrarities,' fol. 57 r.; (Lyly) ' (Lucilla) all the 

company beeing departed to their lodgings, entred into these termes and 

contrarieties,'p. 205,and Camilla in like case 'no sooner had entred in hir 

chamber, but she began in straunge tearmes to vtter this straunge tale,' 

vol. ii. p. 183 1.24. 

Just so a discourse or discussion among the characters is occasionally 

continued by either author in his own person, with an appeal to 

his readers as a tribunal: 

e. g. (Pettie)' It were hard here Gentlewomen for you to geue sentence, 

who more offended of the husband, or the wyfe, seeyng,' &c. fol. 21 r.; 

(Lyly)' Heere ye may beholde, gentlemen,' &c. p. 195; 'I appeale to your 

judgment gentlemen,' &c. p. 198 ;' Gentlemenne and Gentlewoemenne,' &c. 

vol. ii. p. 57 1. 5, cf. i. 215, ii. 109 1.21, 120-2, 1311.13, 154 1.26, 160 1.19 

—a habit which has obtained wide currency among later novelists, 

e. g. Fielding, Thackeray, and more recent writers. 

Misogynist And lastly we may note that the misogynist tone often felt in 

tirades, Guevara's work, e.g. the passage quoted by Landmann from the 

tenth chap, of the Diall, and also the sixteenth of Bk. ii, from which 

I quote in a note on p. 249, is repeated in Pettie, e.g. Amphiaraus 

in his fourth tale, Curiatius' satirical soliloquy, fol. 59-60 r., and the 

passage, fol. 79V. and in Lyly, pp. 241, 249, 253-6, &c. This misogynist 

tone is greatly modified in Part II, where he professes to make the 

ladies amends (cf. Pettie's playful tone to them at the bottom of fol. 37). 

The examples I have quoted from Pettie clearly prove that 

Euphuism had attained full-blown existence before Lyly composed

LYLY ESCHEWS METRICAL RHYTHM 143 

Euphues, and that Pettie's work was Lyly's model in this respect. 

The vastly greater success 1 that Euphues, published only some two 

years later, attained, serves to exhibit the share of error in 

Landmann's assertion that 'the importance ofjthe book does not 

rest with the contents but with the style 2; [JLuphues is, indeed, 

of vast importance in the effect of its style upon our literature; but 

its easy victory over the preceding example of precisely trie same 

style shows that it owes this importance to other merits. That 

greater popularity justifies us in attributing to Lyly, rather than to 

North or Pettie, the immense influence of Euphuism on English 

Prose: but if we seek elsewhere for justification of Webbe's praise 

of him as having ' stept one steppe further than any either before or 

since' in ministering td 'the great good grace and sweete vayne 

which Eloquence hath attained in our speeche,' we shall find but 

little 3 . Yet he may at least be credited With the recognition that 

Pettie's occasional lapse into, or conscious use of, metrical rhythm 

and inversions with that end 4 , was a defect. Rhythm is one thing, 

and a desirable adjunct to a good prose: metrical rhythm is another, 

and undesirable; and in my judgement, Df. Schwan was perfectly 

justified in deprecating, if somewhat tartly, the application by Mr. 

John Goodlet of a verse-terminology to Lyly's style 5 . Ingenuity of 

the kind shown in Mr. Goodlet's essay only tends to confuse the 

discussion of a matter already sufficiently intricate; though doubtless 

Professor Courthope is right in considering Euphuism as too near 

akin to metrical composition, and of too wide an influence on 

English taste in general, to be omitted from his History of English 

Poetry 6 . 

And one other point in which Lyly may claim to have made 

advance is in[the greater care he takes about the distribution of his 

matter into paragraphs .] The carelessness of early printed books in 

1 The editions known of Pettie's Pallace are [1576?], [1586?], [1590?], 1598, 

1608, 1613. 

2 New Shaks. Soc. Transactions, 1884, p. 259. 

8 Discourse of English Poetrie, 1586, p. 46, ed. Arber. 

4 A striking example occurs in the second of those quoted of his use of proverbs 

(above, p. 141). Cf. also ' Yes I am content my rage in rule to bind,' p. 76 (f. 35 v.); 

and ' But sutch as he sowed, he reapte; sutch as hee sought hee founde, sutch as 

hee bought, hee had, to wit, a witles wenche to his wife.' p. 158. 

5 See article by John Goodlet entitled ' Shakespeare's Debt to John Lyly' in 

Englische Studien, v. 356-63; Dr. Schwan's reference to it, Eng. Stud, vi. 98; 

Mr. Boyle's defence of it, vii. 206-210, and Schwan's rejoinder, vii. 210-211. 

6 See his vol. ii. pp. 178 sqq. 

7 Mr. Child also devotes a word to this point in his pamphlet John Lyly and 

Euphuism, p. 117 (Miinchener Beitrage, 1894).

144 


this respect is largely due, no doubt, to the compositors, and to the 

author's neglect to give proper correction to the proof-sheets; but it 

is also clearly a matter belonging to the emergence of prose as an 

art. It is, however, a praise due far more decisively to the Second 

Part of Euphues than to the First. 

Impoiiance , Euphuism l, the characteristics and origin of which have just been 

of Eupku- . ' , . . 1 . . 

ism in the indicated,l is important, not because it eminently hit the taste of its 

develop- day, but because it is, if not the earliest, yet the first thorough and 

ment of . 

English consistent attempt in English Literature to practise prose as an art; 

prose. the first clearly-defined arch in the bridge that spans the gulf between 

the rambling obscurities of Chaucerian prose, such as that of the 

unknown author of The Testament of Love, and the lucid nervous 

paragraphs of our own essayists. Preceding prose had either paid 

little attention to form, or, being translation, had been hampered by 

its original, or else had attained almost by accident to a clarity but 

partial and half-conscious, j Bishop Pecock's Repressor (c. 1450) 

may boast some attention to the period: More's Life of Edward V 

(written c. 1513, first printed 1557) has been praised by Hallam as 

' the first example of good English language, pure and perspicuous, 

well chosen without vulgarisms or pedantry': Tyndale's translation 

of the New Testament, printed in England in 1536, the year in 

which its author was burnt at Vilvorde, has undoubtedly exercised 

immense influence on the language owing to the extensive embodiment 

of its phraseology in the Authorized Version 2 : and Professor 

Courthope 8 has quoted passages from Coverdale's Prologue to the 

Translation of the Bible (1535), and from Cranmer's Defence of the 

True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacraments (1550), which show 

those writers to have possessed a sound, clear, and dignified style of 

English. But none of these achieved such literary fame as could 

make them a general example; perhaps none of them exhibited 

that element of exaggeration which is necessary to arrest attention. 

Nor do I find in George Gascoigne, nor in Sir Geoffrey Fenton, 

though Lyly knew both these writers, any resemblance sufficiently ' 

strong to warrant their inclusion among his special predecessors in 

point of style. We shall be right in assigning to the Euphuist, as 

representing and including his special forerunners, North and Pettie, 

1 Much of the sense and no small part of the language of the following pages 

are reproduced by kind permission of Mr. John Murray, from my article on Lyly 

in the Quarterly Review for January, 1896. 

2 Marsh's Lectures on the English Language, 

3 Hist, of English Poetry, ii. 185-6.

INSISTENCE ON ELEGANCE 145 

the praise of asserting, with an emphasis hitherto unknown,[the 

absolute importance to prose-writing of the principle of Design. 

These three, and Lyly in particular, recognized the need of, an5 

consistently aimed at, what has been well denominated[the quality 

of mind in style, the treatment of the sentence, not as a haphazard 

agglomeration of clauses, phrases, and words, but as a piece of 

literary architecture, whose end is foreseen in the beginning, and 

whose parts are calculated to minister to the total effect. Of this 

mental quality, this architectural spirit in style, Antithesis is the most 

powerful instrumental It may be, it is, [the fact that Lyly abused it; 

that he harped on this string perpetually, to weariness; that in his 

devotion to form he forgot its large dependence upon matter, and 

constrained his thought, sometimes by dilution, sometimes by compression, 

to a mould for which it was not always fitted, with the effect 

of unreality in either case; But this is only to say that he had not 

reached the preference for concealed over obtruded art. It| cannot 

affect his claim to have taken the first momentous step in the 

development of English prose, by obeying a rule of design and 

aiming at elegance and precision of form .] 

] At elegance: for Lyly would certainly not have shared the purist 

opinion which, excluding all rhetoric, ornament and imaginative glow, 

would confine prose art to the power of exact expression.! Such 

a view forgets that no reader, no, nor writer either, is really able to 

judge how far the language used accurately expresses the thought. 

Not the reader; because what appears as excrescence or redundancy 

to him may really represent earlier, more fundamental and necessary, 

action of the author's brain; and, similarly, any inadequacy he feels 

may be proper to the author's thought rather than to his words. 

Not the writer; because thought itself only acquires development 

and determination from the words which seek to reflect it. With 

their arrival it undergoes kaleidoscopic change, and adjusts itself in 

some measure to them. Allowing that certain words may possess 

a greater affinity to the germ-idea than certain others, the feeling 

that they are merely a reflection of it must be pronounced a delusion. 

Language is one of the parents, not merely the accoucheur, to ideas : 

the processes of originating by invention, and shaping by words, are 

so nearly simultaneous and so mutually interactive as to be in reality 

indistinguishable. Grace, vigour, and wit, at any rate, shared to the 

full with clearness in Lyly's effort and admiration. He grasped the 

fact that in prose, no less than in poetry, the reader demands to be 

BOND I L


lured onward by a succession of half-imperceptible shocks of pleasure 

in the beauty and vigour of diction, or in the ingenuity of phrasing, 

in sentence after sentence—pleasure separable from that caused by 

a perception of the nice adaptation of word to thought, pleasure 

quite other than that derivable from the acquisition of fresh knowledge. 

Yet for all his tendency to adornment, he did certainly more 

for the cause of clearness than any predecessor or contemporary. 

Is there one, in spite of the rare exceptions which I have been at 

pains to collect from Lyly's novel, whose meaning is so readily to be 

grasped on a first perusal ? any, who could so well stand the test of 

the removal of all marks of punctuation save the full stop ? Even 

Mallory's simplicity is sometimes marred by obscurity, or by an 

anacoluthon. Robynson's translation of the Utopia (i551) is full of 

loosely-constructed sentences, the Arcadia (begun 1580) of rambling 

ones of wearisome prolixity. Thomas Nash huddles phrase on 

phrase with a breathlessness which, as he confesses, makes his ' full 

points seem as tedious as the Northern man's mile 1; Take the 

following from the epistle which he prefixed to Greene's Menaphon 

(1589), an early specimen, indeed, of Nash, but fairly quotable, since 

it is an indictment of Lyly's style. 

" Let other men (as they please) praise the mountaine that in seuen 

yeares brings foorth a mouse, or the Italionate pen, that of a packet of 

pilfries, affoordeth the presse a pamphlet or two in an age, and then in 

disguised arraie, vaunts Ouids and Plutarchs plumes as their owne ; but 

giue me the man, whose extemporall vaine in anie humor, will excell our 

greatest Art-masters deliberate thoughts ; whose inuention quicker than 

his eye, will challenge the proudest Rethoritian, to the contention of like 

perfection, with like expedition .. . Indeede I must needes say, the 

descending yeares from the Philosophers Athens, haue not been supplied 

with such present Orators, as were able in anie English vaine to be eloquent 

of their owne, but either they must borrow inuention of Ariosto, and his 

Countreymen, take vp choyce of words by exchange in Tullies Tusculane, 

and the Latine Historiographers store-houses; similitudes, nay whole 

sheetes and tractates verbatim, from the plentie of Plutarch and Plinie, 

and to conclude, their whole methode of writing, from the libertie of 

Comicall fictions, that haue succeeded to our Rethoritians, by a second 

imitation: so that, well may the Adage, Nil dictum quod non dictum 

prius, bee the most iudiciall estimate, of our latter Writers ... so woulde 

I haue them, being surfetted vnawares with the sweete sacietie of eloquence, 

which the lauish of our copious Language maie procure, to vse the 

1 An Almond for a Parrot, p. 9 (Petheram's Puritan Discipline Tracts).

AND ON DESIGN 147 

remedie of contraries ; and recreate their rebated witts, not as they did, 

with the senting of slyme or Goates beardes burnt, but with the ouerseeing 

of that sublime dicendigenus, which walkes'abroad for wast paper 

in each seruing mans pocket, and the otherwhile perusing of our Gothamists 

barbarisme; so shoulde the opposite comparison of Puritie, expell 

the infection of absurditie; and their ouer-rackte Rhetorique, bee the 

Ironicall recreation of the Reader." Menaphon, ed. Arber, pp. 6-8. 

Reading passages like this, not the most fervent devotee of simplicity 

can assert that it is a natural power; not the bitterest foe of 

artificiality but must prefer the sharp and pointed style of the appropriator 

of Pliny and Plutarch to such jumbled incoherence. Lyly 

at least knew that he must select; and his selection was not confined 

to mere diction. [ He had not merely grasped the secret of the picked 

and telling word : he had recogrfized that parasitical side-suggestions, 

thrown up by the brain in the act of composition, cannot be allowed 

to take unquestioned the place they tend to assume as dependent 

clauses of a sentence then being written f but that, being weighed 

with regard to their purport and relative importance to the argument 

in hand, they must be, some subordinated, some co-ordinated with 

what precedes, some pruned away to an epithet, some disallowed 

altogether—that, in a word, the new arrival must never be the slave 

of the grammatical form in use at the moment of its appearance, 

but must be admitted to council as to what that form shall ultimately 

be. I It is this interplay and just equipoise of matter and manner, of 

thought and form, that creates correct style. This Lyly, though he 

sometimes forgets it, really has; this Nash and Sidney have not : 

and though I do not think the direct influence of Lyly's Euphuism 

can be traced much beyond the beginning of the seventeenth century 1 , 

his indirect influence, as setting an example of constant attention to 

form and aim at force and precision, was probably greater than that 

of any other writer our literature has known. ["He at least," writes 

Prof. Courthope, " showed the nation the possibilities of balance and 

harmony in English prose composition ; and the form which he established 

in the structure of the English sentence has never been entirely lost sight 

of by his successors! ] Addison and Steele] while they aimed at something 

much beyond the ' fit phrases, pithy sentences, and gallant tropes' which 

gratified the taste of Webbe] learned from Lyly how to present genuine 

thoughts in an artistic for [and Burke, Johnson, and Macaulay, 

1 Child quotes some good examples of parisonic antithesis and simple and transverse 

alliteration from Fuller, mjohn Lyly and Euphuism, pp. 114-5. 

L 2


avoiding the'petty particularity of his contrasted words, followed his ex* 

ample in working up sentences and periods to the: climax required for the 

justjmd forcible presentation of the argument.1" 

[ Lyly's defects may be freely acknowledged: redundancy of expression, 

plethora of ornament and illustration, a parade of knowledge 

sometimes consciously false and mostly recognized to-day 

as unscientific, and tediousness due to perpetual repetition of the 

sentiment, and strained adherence in a later clause to a form appropriate 

only to the sense of an earlier—in a word, a want of respect 

for ' the modesty of nature V But these are largely the defects of his 

time 1 , and Lyly, with all his cleverness, indeed because he had good 

wits rather than genius, won his immediate success, as immediate 

success is almost always won, by complying with current taste. If 

evidence were wanted it is to be fodnd in his dedicatory Epistles, in 

the second of which he acknowledges that in both Parts he may 

' seeme to gleane after an others Cart3,' while in the first he affects 

to apologize for' rudeness':— 

'Though the stile nothing delight the dayntie eare of the curious sifter, 

yet wil the matter recreate the minde of the courteous Reader. The 

varietie of the one wil abate the harshnes of the other.., I shal satisfie 

myne own mynde, though I cannot feede their humors, which greatly seke 

after those that sift the finest meale, & beare the whitest mouthes. It 

is a worlde to see how Englishmen desire to heare finer speach then the 

language* will allow, to eate finer bread then 'is made of wheat, to weare 

finer cloth then is wrought of Woll 4.' 

Imitation Still stronger evidence of its accordance with the mode is found 

ofhuphu- ofEuphu in the almost slavish imitation which Euphues evoked, especially in, 

Greene, whom Nashy in the passage quoted above, will have us 

believe so superior to his model. Euphuism is very noticeable in 

Greene's Mammillia, 1583, ridiculously so in The Myrrour of 

Modesty, 1584, and in the Epistle Dedicatory to Planetomachia, 1585, 

1 

History of English Poetry, ii. 201-2. 

a 

' Hiennit haben wir eine Haupteigenschaft seines Stils bezeichnet; derselbe 

gehort der Renaissance an, aber er bleibt nicht in den Grenzen der Einfachheit; 

was Shakespeare im Hamlet von dem Scbauspieler verlangt, die Bescheidenheit der 

Natur zu wahren, ware fiir Lilly's Diction eine vergebliche Mahnung gewesen. Er 

liebt bei den Alten das Ueberladene und Geschmiickte mehr als das Einfache und 

Natiirliche, den Virgil mehr als den Homer,' &c. (Hense, Shakespeare-fahrbuch, 

viii. 260). 

3 

Vol. ii. p. 5 1.26, meaning, 1 think, Pettie, but perhaps his models and sources 

in general. 

' P. 180. For a still more precise profession of faith cf. vol. ii. p. 60 1.18: ' It is 

wit yt alhireth, when euery word shal bane his weight, whe nothing shal proceed, 

but it shal either sauour of a sharpe conceipt, or a secret conclusion.'

EUPHUISM AND ARCADIANISM 149 

OAnd somewhat in Euphues his censure to Philautus, 1587, in Alcida, 

lic, 1588, Orpharion, written 1588, and Menaphon, 1589 1. About 

1590 it practically disappears from Greene's work, though there 

is a very euphuistic passage in PhiIomelat 1592 2 . It is pretty well 

confined to Greene's love-romances. I notice nothing of it in 

Perimedes the Blacksmith, 1588, nor anything in the Quip for an 

Vpstart Courtier, 1592, Lodge's Rosalynde . Euphues golden Legacie 

(1590) has been described by Landmann as 'Euphuistic in style 

and Arcadian in content 3 '; but the structural resemblance to 

Euphues is not very strongly marked or frequent, while the Arcadia, in part 

though written in 1580-1581, was only published in 1590, and supersed 

I cannot feel that Lodge was much affected by its peculiar man- dianism, 

nerism, though Rosalynde shares its ideal temper. There is no 

doubt, however, that the Arcadia soon superseded, by its own far 

more stilted and unnatural language, the exaggerated antithesis and 

similes of Euphues, Written, like the latter, by a courtier for courtiers, 

it is much more markedly aristocratic in tone; and if it did not 

permanently oust the latter, it at least shared its empire over the 

fashionable world. If society accepted Euphues as the model of 

polite literary style, it accepted Arcadia no less as the model of all 

that it was noble and courtly and ingenuous to feel and think. Their 

relative influence is well illustrated in the Every Man out of his 

Humour of Ben Jonson, whose pages contain the fullest and most 

direct caricature of fashionable life. If the courtier, Fastidious 

Brisk, alludes once to the Anatomy of Wit (iii. 1), and Fallace, 

the city dame, quotes it (v. 7)4, yet her brother Fungoso, equally 

studious of courtly fashion, will ' lie abed and read the Arcadia' 

(iii. 1), a work which Brisk elsewhere commends as the model of 

polite speech 5 . One of the chief points ridiculed in Brisk and 

Puntarvolo in this play, in the Osric and Armado of Shakespeare, 

and in Scott's Sir Piercie Shafton, is the use of fine words to lend 

1 In Pandosto, 1588, a tale which presents considerable resemblances to 

Menaphon, and on which Shakespeare founded The Winters Tale, I detect but 

little trace of Euphuism. 

2 See Grosart's edition of Greene's Works, vol. xii. p. 145. 

3 Child's John Lyly and Euphuism, pp. 26, 112. 

4 See my note on Euphues, vol. ii. p. 123 1,16. 

5 Brisk, ii. 1, thus commends his mistress, 'she does observe as pure a phrase, 

and use as choice figures in her ordinary conferences, as any be in the Arcadia'; 

to which Carlo Huffone rejoins,' Or rather in Green's works, whence she may steal 

with more security.' Brisk's allusion to Euphues in iii. 1 is also in reference to his 

mistress,' but when she speaks herself, such an anatomy of wit, so sinewized and 

arterized, that 'tis the goodliest model of pleasure that ever was to behold.'

Degree to 

which Euphuism 

is 

parodied, 

ridiculed, 

or copied 

by Shakespeare. 

I50 


a false dignity to the most simple actions. Now, while instances of 

this abound in the Arcadia, it is not at all a mark of Euphues. 

After 1590, then, Euphuism, though still appearing here and there, 

is no longer the regnant or exclusive influence. This is not to say, 

however, that its influence is dead. The continued reprinting of 

both Parts of the novel is proof that it must still be reckoned among 

the literary formative influences of the time. Delius, in his essay 

on Shakespeare's prose ', noted the presence of Lylian phrases and 

constructions, of antithesis and metaphors, due either to direct imitation 

or to spontaneous evolution, particularly in the later dramas, 

where information on matters of fact had to be given to the audience, 

or where it was desirable to strike a specially ceremonial note ; 

and Hense, too, considered that Euphuism had laid strong fetters on 

the style of the greater poet 2 . Dr. Schwan (Enghsche Studien, vi. 

99 sqq.) examined a number of passages adduced by Delius, and 

decided that Euphuism could not be said to be present in them. 

One readily agrees that all the characteristics of Euphuism are 

nowhere presented together: that antithesis and alliteration are not 

the peculiar property of any one writer: that Shakespeare often, 

while following euphuistic matter by Lyly or Greene or Lodge, 

effaces the Euphuism of the style, and that in the famous passage 

cited by Landmann he is actually parodying it 3 . But its influence 

1 'Die Prosa in Shakspere's Dramen' (Jahrbuch der deutscken Shakespeare- 

Gesellschaft, vol. v. p. 155,1870). 

a " Shakespeare ist sichtbar von dem enphuistischen Sprachgeschmacke, der in 

hochster Bliithe stand, als der jugendliche Dichter nach London kam, tief beriihrt 

und stark gefesselt worden, und noch in seinen reifsten Dichtungen tragt manches 

ernst gemeinte Wort eine euphuistische Farbe" (Shakcspeare-Jahrbuch, vol. viii. 

p. 261). 

3 1 Henry IV, ii. 4. 438-61, quoted above in note on p. 133. The simile from 

the camomile which occurs Euphues, p. 196, is ultimately derived fiom Pettie's 

Pallace, p. 16 (f. 11 v.). Dr. Schwan has the following interesting remarks on the 

Shakespeare parody:— 

" Eine stelle ist schon von Landmann herausgehoben und in ihr die verschiedenen 

elemente des Euphuismus nachgewiesen worden. Nachzutragen ware noch, dass 

auch hier die Lyly's antithesenstil charakterisirenden partikeln 'not only—but* 

und' though—yet' sich finden. Die kostliche verspottung von Lyly's rhetorischen 

fragen in jener stelle hat L. ubeisehen: ' Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a 

micher and eat blackberries ? a question not to be asked. Shall the son of England 

prove a thief and take purses? a question to be asked.' Auch hier klingt der spott 

durch den predigerton hindurch, indem Falstaff sich dariiber belustigt, dass manche 

dieser fragen iiberhaupt nicht zu fragen seien, ahnlich wie er, bei dem citat vom 

pech, die unstandliche art Lyly's, allbekannte sachen wie etwas noch nie gehortes 

anzufuhren und auf autoren des alterthums als gewahrsmanner hinzuweisen, verspottet 

(Transactions, N. S. S., p. 251). Ueberhaupt ist die ganze stelle nicht als 

em muster euphuistischen stils zu betrachten; der stil ist mehr angedeutet, als 

wirklich ausgefuhrt. Eine zweite stelle, in welcher wir allerdings auch nur mehr

SHAKESPEARE PARODIES EUPHUISM 151 

on him must not be minimized, nor his ridicule of it exaggerated. 

Love's Labours Lost, for instance, while reproducing bombastic, 

grandiloquent, pedantic and affected methods of speech, cannot 

fairly be interpreted, any more than can Jonson's Cynthia's Reveh, 

as an attack on Euphuism. The style of the courtiers in Love's 

Labour's Lost is rather the inflated metaphorical style made fashionable 

at the Spanish Court about this period by Luis de Gongora 1 ; 

and the play itself is an attack on violation of nature by convention 

or affectation of any kind, whether of speech or conduct, the general 

moral being that we are to recognize the homely necessity of facts 

and of natural limitations—' No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no 

salve in them all, sir ! O sir, plantain, a plain plantain !' ' A marvellous 

good neighbour, faith, and a very good bowler: but, for 

Alisander, —alas, you see how 'tis,—a little o'erparted V And so 3 in 

all the other cases where Shakespeare draws a superfine courtier, 

with a touch of braggardism or emptiness. Courtly affectation, not 

Lyly specially, nor his subjects, nor his style, is variously ridiculed 

in Proteus, in Cassio, in Parolles, in Osric : it is an object of aspiring 

imitation to Touchstone and Sir Andrew; it is ajjused and parodied 

by manly characters like Mercutio and Kent. Many characteristics 

of style are caricatured by Shakespeare: poverty of phrase in Nym, 

bombast like Marlowe's in Pistol, over-nicety of distinction in 

eine anspielung auf den Euphuismus haben, findet sich in der folgenden rede 

Falstaff's: ' If then the tree may be known by the fruity as the fruit by the tree, 

then, peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff' (i Henry IV, ii. 4. 

409-11). Das vorbild zu dieser stelle findet sich im Euphues, p. 207 : ' Can his 

honour be called into question, whose honestie is so great ? Is he to be thought 

thriftlesse, who in all qualities of the minde is peerlesse ? No, no, the tree is known 

by his fruit,' &c. Eine andere stelle, in der der Euphuismus parodirt ist, findet 

sich in des prinzen rede, als dieser die rolle des konigs spielt. Nachdem er in 

einer reihe von schimpfwortem Falstaff charakterisirt hat, fahrt er so fort. 

' Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it ? Wherein neat and cleanly, 

but to carve a capon and eat it ? Wherein running but in craft ? Wherein crafty 

but in villainy ? Wherein z/illainous, but in all things ? Wherein worthy, but in 

nothing ?' (Ibid. 435 sqq.) Hier haben wir eine periode gleichgebauter rhetorischer 

fragen, die selbst wieder aus antithesen bestehen, deren entsprechende glieder durch 

alliteration &c. hervorgehoben sind. Zu bemerken ist auch die schone climax, 

welche ganz ahnlich von Lyly zur charakteristik verwandt wird" (Englische 

Studien, vi. p. 102 (1883).) 

1 See Landmann's essay in the Transactions (N. S.S.), 1884, pp. 244-50, and 

Dr. Schwan's criticism, Englische Studien, vi. pp. 103-4. 

Luis de Gongora, born 1561, is mentioned as a known author by Cervantes as 

early as 1584: he was the chief contributor to Espinosa's collection of poetry in 

1605 (Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, iii. 20 sqq.). 

a Love's Labour's Lost, iii. 1. 75, v. 2. 585. 

3 This and the next two pages are reprinted almost without change from my 

article in The Quarterly Review for Jan. 1896.


Launcelot, verbosity in Polonius and Salarino.[ Shakespeare knew 

* a many fools' that ' for a tricksy word' would ' defy the matter.' 

Lyly with his Euphuism was at worst only one among the rest; and 

Shakespeare must have felt himself too much indebted to the 

example of his predecessor to single him out as specially deserving 

of ridicule. For I cannot help feeling that Euphuism did exercise 

a marked influence upon his own prose, especially in the five years 

between 1596 and 1600 ; and that such influence tended to subtilize 

and strengthen his thought, and is visible even in the riper and 

more natural dialogue of later plays, such as that of the opening 

scene of The Winter's Tale, There is abundant evidence that he 

had carefully studied Lyly's comedies, most of which were printed 

after his own arrival in London (circ. 1585). In these comedies 

Euphuism, however diminished, is still plainly apparent; and Shakespeare, 

as he comes to know them better, and still more the Euphues 

itself, which was being constantly reprinted, betrays at whiles the 

unconscious infection, or deliberately chooses it as the occasionally 

appropriate vehicle for what he wishes to convey. In the prose of 

his earliest comedies, however these may exhibit the influence 

of Lyly's dramatic structure, I find no marks of the style at all 1 . 

1 No mechanical marks, that is, except so far as puns and word-play are such: i. e. 

he exhibits only something of the habits of I. (A), not of I. (a), see above, pp. i ao, 123. 

In the stuff and spirit of his earliest comic work he assimilates largely the spirit of 

Lyly's—the dialogue-scenes which exist chiefly for dialogue, not action; the preoccupation 

with wit and raillery which was what the last generation of critics, who 

had not reached our minute analysis, chiefly meant when they discussed Euphuism: 

and, incidental to this, he indulges in a certain amount of alliteration and punning 

and word-play. But his closer feeling, and reproduction, of Lyly's antithetic style 

come later. Mezieres (1863) perhaps feels the distinction, though he does not 

clearly state it. He shows how Shakespeare, on his arrival in London, c. 1585, 

must needs have been affected by the witty style of talk then all the fashion in 

society and on the stage; and he also recognizes that his apprenticeship to 

Euphuism left a permanent deposit on his own mind and style: but he does 

not discriminate the stages and degrees, does not see that the work of his middle 

period contains passages far more closely euphuistic than any in the early work, 

where the signs of external imitation are far more obvious. 

" Car Shakespeare a passe* par l'euphuisme. . . . Cela nous explique pourquoi 

nous trouvons, dans ses premieres pieces, un certain nombre de dialogues qui ne 

tiennent pas a Taction, qui pourraient en etre detaches sans difficulty, mais ou 

deux ou trois interlocuteurs font de propos delibere assaut d'esprit, uniquement 

pour montrer qu'ils en ont et pour deployer devant le public toutes les ressources 

de leur imagination. Benedict et Beatrix, dans Beaucoup d embarras pour rien; 

Lance et l'Eclair, dans les Deux Vfronais; Mercutio lui-meme, dans Romeo et 

Juliette, n'ont guere d'autres fonctions que d'engager une discussion avec le premier 

venu sur un mot, sur une phrase, sur une bagatelle qu'amene le hasard de la conversation, 

et d'en faire sortir une foule d'pigrammes, de quolibets et de calembours. 

Tout ce gronpe de personnages de Shakespeare vient en droite ligne de Lyly. lis 

ont lu VEuphues, Endytnion et Galathte, et c'est a cette exole qu'ils ont appris a

BUT ALSO IMITATES IT 153 

It appears • first in The Merchant of Venice, in the talk between 

Portia and Nerissa, and one or two other passages, and is constantly 

reappearing in the work of the next few years. [It crops up only in 

the mouths of people of rank and education, and chiefly in characters 

remarkable for wit, such as Falstaff, Prince Hal, Portia, Rosalind, 

Touchstone, or the Clown in Twelfth Night ] Doubtless we should 

have had it earlier in Shakespeare's work, had he sooner adopted 

the free mingling of prose with verse in his historical plays, or had 

the clowns qfjhe earliest comedies been, like the later ones, professional 

wits. ; Just as in his earliest comic work he imitates Lyly in 

the artificial balancing of group against group, and in the continual 

word-play and strain after wit, so in the riper comic work of his 

middle period (1596-1600) he follows Lyly by the introduction of 

a still larger amount of prose, and with it a certain share of his 

antithesis and pointed structure of sentences.] I must content 

myself with quoting a single instance, and that the earliest, a speech 

of Portia's; asking the reader to note in it the general antithetic 

structure, the euphuistic balance of substantive and epithet against 

substantive and epithet, the repetition of words to add point, the 

pun, the assonance, the alliteration, and referring him in a note to 

numerous other passages 1: 

' If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had 

been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good 

distiller, comme ils le font, la quintessence du bel esprit." (Pre'de'cesseurs et Contemporains 

de Shakespeare, pp. 84-5.) 

" Celui-ci (Skakespeare) a cherche a s'en degager de bonne heure, et il s'en est 

meme un peu moque dans le role d'Armado [in a note he qualifies this by stating 

that it is ' l'emphase espagnole ' rather than Euphuism that Armado parodies]; 

mais il a eu beau faire, il en a garde quelque chose toute sa vie. Outre qu'il lui a 

du une certaine delicatesse et une certaine grace de langage qu'il n'aurait peut-etre 

pas atteinte aussi facilement sans Texemple des Italiens et de Lyly, il a conserve* 

jusqu'a la fin, dans son style, quelques traces de raffinement et de recherche dont 

l'ongine n'est pas douteuse. Quand on voit ce genie si vigoureux et si franc donner 

quelquefois a sa pensee, meme dans ses meilleures pieces, une forme quintessenciee 

et subtile, on ne peut pas s'empecher de penser aux lecons qu'il a recues des 

euphuistes dans sa jeunesse." (Ibid. p. 87.) 

1 The references are to Clark and Wright's text: 

Merchant of Venice, i. 1. 114-18 Bassanio; 2. 1-36 Portia and Neiissa, 92-6, 

140-5. iii. 1. 41-4 Salarino, 92-101 Shylock and, in part, 55-76. 

1 Henry IV, i. 2. 1-5 Prince, 26-43 Falstaff and Prince, 140-8, 170-5. 

2 Henry IV, i. 2. 84-102 Falstaff, 138-49, 159-64, 196-209, 245-7, 255-60. 

ii. 2. 192-6 Prince ; and the first half-dozen lines of the Epilogue. 

Much Ado, i. 1. 173-8 Benedick, 240-8; 3. 11-19 Don John, 27-38, 69-70. 

ii. 1. 38-42 Beatrice; 3. 6-36 Benedick, iii. 3. 166-70 Borachio; 4. 80-90 

Margaret's repetition of words. iv. 1. 319-26 Beatrice. 

As You Like It, i. 2. 40-60 Rosalind and Celia, 92-6, 197-204 Orlando.

154 


divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what 

were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own 

teaching. The frain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps 

o'er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the 

weshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the . 

fashion to choose me a husband. 0 me, the word " choose " ! I may 

neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike', so is the will of 

a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, 

Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?' (Act i. sc. 2. 13-29.) 

SOURCES: The entry of Euphues in the Stationers' Register, Dec. 2, 1578, 

speaks of it as ' compiled by John Lyllie,' and in the Epistle Dedicatory 

to the Second Part we have a similar admission from himself 1 . 

Pettie In pointing to Pettie as Lyly's chief exemplar in the matter of style, 

I have shown how he is also indebted to him in respect of treatment. 

But his chief original in this department must, no doubt, be 

North sought in North's Diall of Princes, i.e. in Guevara's Libro Aureo. 

His debt was first exhibited by Dr. Landmann, and restated by 

Mrs. Humphry Ward in her article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

If anything it has been overstated. The reader should guard against 

the notion that Lyly makes frequent verbal drafts upon the Diall. 

Words, and the deft manipulation of them, were his peculiar province 

; and the consciousness of a far superior skill would sufficiently 

debar him from much verbal indebtedness, though I have pointed out 

in my notes one or two passages, e.g. one from North's book ii. ch. 16, 

which does seem to have lent something to a passage on p. 249. His 

real debt consists in suggestion: throughout Part I the form, tone, 

and subjects of Guevara's work are largely the model of his own. 

" They coincide in their contents in many points, and both show the 

same dissertations on the same subjects. In both works are letters 

affixed at the end, and these letters treat of the same matter. In both 

occur the same persons, and some of these persons bear the same name. 

There is not much of a plot in either work ; the principal contents of each 

are long dialogues, soliloquies, and moral dissertations on love and 

iii. 2. 11-32 Touchstone and Corin—a possible parody, 46-9; 3. 12-15 Touchstone, 

50-64, 80-83. iv. i. 10-29 Jaques. Epilogue. 

Twelfth Night, i. 5. 47-59 Clown, 209-14 Olivia. 

1 Vol. ii. p. 5 1.26: ' if I seeme to gleane after an others Cart, for a few eares of 

corne, or of the Taylors shreds to make me a lyuery, I will not deny, but that 1 

am one of those Poets, which the painters faine to come vnto Homers bason, 

there to lap vp that he doth cast vp.' It is noticeable, however, that throughout 

bis work he never mentions either North or Plutarch or Pettie by name.

LYLY'S DEBT TO GUEVARA 155 

ladies, God, friendship, courtship, youth and education, Court and 

country 1". 

For example, the name of Lucilla, the light-minded daughter of 

the Emperor who is rebuked by him in the fifth of the Letters at the 

end of the Diall, is also that of Lyly's fickle heroine, similarly 

rebuked by her father Ferardo, pp. 243-4; while Livia is the correspondent 

to whom the Emperor's last letter is addressed in the Diall, 

as her namesake is the recipient of Euphues' last in Part I of Lyly's 

romance, p. 320. Book ii. chh. 32-40 of the Diall deal with Education 

: therefore Lyly writes his treatise ' Euphues and his Ephoebus,' 

but goes, as Guevara did, directly to Plutarch, whom he practically 

translates with additions of his own. Guevara devotes chh. 4 and 

9-12 of his first Book to religious matters : hence Lyly feels it 

incumbent on him to introduce a dialogue between Euphues and 

Atheos to prove the existence of God ; but his dialogue owes 

nothing at all to Guevara's chapter. And, further, the Diall contains 

(1) (bk. i. 42) a letter from M. Aurelius to a disorderly nephew 

Episepo, at Athens, who prides himself on personal beauty, which 

suggests that of Euphues to Aldus, p. 316, who is similarly misengaged, 

but whose pride is based rather on old descent. (2) Two 

letters, to Domicio, iii. 34, and Torquado, iii. 41, to comfort them 

in banishment, which suggest one from Euphues to Botonio ' to take 

his exile patiently' (p. 313), taken, however, not from Guevara, but 

direct from Plutarch, De Exilio. (3) The tenth of the batch of 

Letters at the end of the Diall is from the Emperor ' To the amorous 

Ladies of Rome,' inveighing against their frivolity, and in the middle 

of it he pauses to exempt the respectable ladies of the capital from 

his censure ' 2 : so, too, Lyly writes a misogynist ' Cooling Carde,' 

pp. 246 sqq., followed by an amende ' To the graue Matrones and 

honest Maydens of Italy,' pp. 257-9. From another work of 

Guevara's, Aviso de privados y doctrina de cortesanos, North translated 

the fourth book of his Diall in the second edition ; and this, 

together with the Menosprecio del Corte (see note on p. 137 above), is 

the original of that opposition between Court and country which 

appears so often in these letters written by Euphues. A sufficiently 

clear indication that Lyly was really imitating the Diall is found in his 

careless adoption of the university of Athens, pp. 184,2 7 3 1.2 9,316, and 

of the Emperor, p. 319, of whom we have not previously heard, appro- 

1 Landmann's paper in Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, 1885, p. 255. 

2 See note on l A Cooling Carde/ p. 246.


priate enough in Guevara's work, but anachronisms in his own 

romance of Elizabethan life. With the First Part, however, Lyly's 

connexion with Guevara ceases. The mere introduction of the 

name Camilla, which Landmann says is borrowed from Guevara, 

and the fact that Fidus has retired from the Court, are entirely 

insufficient to give the Spaniard the slightest title in the Second 

Part; and even though the Diall, ii. 16, gives rules to enable a man 

to leave at peace with his wife, yet Lyly may with more probability 

be supposed to have received the suggestion, as he certainly borrows 

most of the matter, of his final letter to Philautus from the Conjugalia 

Praecepta of Plutarch. 

Plutarch To sum up his debt to Plutarch: his Ephoebus is a fairly close 

translation of the De Educatione; the letter to Botonio bears the same 

relation to Plutarch's De Exilio ; Euphues' advice to Philautus about 

his married life, vol. ii. pp. 223-7 sqq., is translated in the same free 

manner from Plutarch's Conjugalia Praecepta; and a whole page is 

inserted in the Ephoebus, p. 279, from the De Garrulitate. Besides 

this, a very large proportion of the anecdotes and historical 

allusions, in which the two novels abound, is drawn from the Regia et 

Imperatoria Apophthegmata, from the Apophthegmata Laconica, from 

other treatises, or from one or other of the Lives. Also the letter to 

Eubulus, on the death of his daughter, p. 310, is probably suggested 

by Plutarch's Consolatio ad Apollonium, or that ad Polybium, 

though possibly by the Diall, iii. 49. No English translation of 

Plutarch's Moralia existed before that in folio by Philemon Holland, 

1603; but there were many Latin versions, on one or other of 

which I think Lyly chiefly relied, though doubtless he had the 

Greek also before him. 

Pliny Among the classical authors to whom he is indebted, Pliny must 

take the next place. The notes will sufficiently illustrate his debt 

throughout to the Natural History ; but I may select for special 

mention the account Fidus gives of his bees, vol. ii. pp. 44-6, largely 

drawn from Book xi. chh. 10-12,17,18, 20, while on pp. 11 7-8 Lyly 

lifts fourteen lines of historical instances straight from Book xxvi. 9 1. 

1 As I have often referred in the notes to Bartholomaeus Anglicus, in connexion 

with the similes, and think Lyly may have turned to him occasionally rather than 

to Pliny, e.g. p. 191 'stone Abeston'; p. 208 'Dogge ... eateth grasse'; p. 219 

' worme eateth not the Ceder,' I append the title of Berthelet's beautiful black-letter 

folio :-Anno. M.D.XXXV. Bertholomevs de proprietatibus rerum. Londini in 

adibus Thofna Bertheleti regii impressoris. Cum privilegio a rege indulto. In 

the colophon John Trevisa,Sir Thos. Berkeley's chaplain, informs us that 'this 

translatio was ended at Berkeley, the vi. daye of Feuerer the yere of our lorde

AND TO THE CLASSICS 157 

For his perpetual allusions to classical mythology his chief source Ovid 

was undoubtedly Ovid, on whose Metamorphoses, fferoides, and Ars 

Amatoria, &c., he is perpetually drawing. Occasionally one doubts 

whether he did not rather use the succinct little accounts given in 

the Fabularum Liberof Hyginus, identified on no good authority with and 

Augustus' freedman, C. Julius Hyginus. In 1535 there was printed Hygimus 

at Basle a folio collection of the mythologies of Hyginus, Palaephatus, 

and Fulgentius, to which was added in 1549 the work of Phornutus, 

Albricius, and others. That Lyly used the work seems probable from 

his reproduction in the Woman in the Moone, ii. 1, of some lines of 

a Latin translation of Arams' Phaenomena, which are also embodied 

in this collection. An octavo edition, with the important addition of 

Apollodorus' Bibliotheca sive de Deorum origine, which I believe Lyly 

uses in regard to Apollo, p. 236, was printed at Paris in 1578. 

References to Aesop occur pretty frequently, the most notable Aesop 

being his reproduction of the fable of the Sun and the Wind, vol. ii. 

p. 224 (repeated in the Epilogue to Endimion) which however he 

took from the twelfth of Plutarch's Conjugalia Praecepla. 

The De Amicitia of Cicero affords him some matter for the rela- Cicero 

tions of Euphues and Philautus, while on the De Natura Deorum 

he makes considerable drafts, e.g. on pp. 291-2 eighteen lines are 

translated from book iii. 34 of that work, on p. 293 twenty-two lines 

from book ii. 5, in vol. ii. p. 1021.1 the allusion to Jason's imposthume 

comes from book iii. 28, and on p. 2041.4 the story about Simonides 

defining God is taken from book i. 22. 

Mr. G. C. Child 1 has, I find, anticipated me in pointing out that Caesar, 

Euphues' description of Britain (vol. ii. pp. 31-2) to the seasick yet 

patient Philautus is simply translated from the De Bello Gallico, 

v. 12-14. Indeed, Euphues acknowledges the debt. 

mccclxxxxvii. the yere of the reyne. of King Rycharde the seconde after the 

Conqtteste of Englande .xxii. The yere of my lordes age syre Thomas lorde of 

Berkeley, that made me to make this Translation jclvi.' And in this same connexion 

of similes, since both Parts abound in illustrations from medicine (in 

imitation of Pettie) and Euphues promises himself consolation from * the Aphorismes 

of Galen,' p. 241,1 add the title of a huge Froben folio of that famous work with 

Brasavola's notes—Antonio Mvsce Brasavoli Medici Ferrariensis in octo libros 

Apkorismorum Hippocratis & Galeni, Cotnmentaria & Annotations. .. Basileœ 

in officina Frobeniana Anno MD.XLI. For a handier source of such knowledge 

Lyly might turn to The newe Jewell of Health, wherein is contained the most 

excellent Secretes of Phisicke and Philosophic, deuided into fower Bookes.... 

Gathered out of the best and most approved Authors, by that excellent Doctor 

Gesnerus... . Faithfully corrected and published in Englishe, by George Baker, 

Chirurgian. Printed at London, by Henrie Denham. 1576. 

1 John Lyly and Fuphuism, p. 33.


other To complete the list of classical sources that I have identified, there 

authors are many allusions to Seneca, e.g. p. 2841.36, to the De Brevit Vitae, 

c. 1; three anecdotes forwhich I find no adequate original save Valerius 

Maximus (p. 276 1. 2 Chrisippus and Melissa, from Val. Max. viii. 7. 

5 ; vol. ii. pp. 206 1. 32, patience of Zeno, from iii. 3. 2; p. 209 1.17 

Aemilia the Vestal, from i. 1. 7); two allusions at least to Suetonius' 

De Cesaribus (p. 77 1.12, Augustus' piercing eyes, from ii. .79; 

page 208 1.16,' I would we could not write,' from Nero, vi. 10); three 

to Aelian's De Natura Animalium, on pp. 144, 215 1. 25; vol. ii. p. 

131 1.13, and several to his Varia Historia, e.g. vol. ii. pp. 56 1. 7, 

107 1. 28, 203 1. 34, 213 11. 23-4; and a few to Virgil and Homer. 

Other Returning to the literature of his own country, we must add to the 

aulhors works of pettie and North (1) the Description of Britaine, by 

William Harrison, prefixed to the English section in Holinshed's 

Chronicle, 1577, from which Lyly freely borrows in his Glasse for 

Europe, so far as p. 196. (2) John Heywood's Proverbes, the first 

edition of which was printed in 1546; but in 1562 it was reprinted 

with large augmentations and title as below l . (3) A little black-letter 

Octavo by Edmund Tylney, Lyly's superior in the Revels Office at a 

later date, entitled A briefe andpleasaunt discourse of duties in Mariage 

with running-title ' The Flower of Friendship' (1568), from which he 

borrows a passage vol. ii. pp. 162-3 (see note in loco), and which 

he had before him, along with the Conjugalia Praecepta, in composing 

the letter to Phiiautus, pp. 223-7 sqq. (4) One cannot pass 

over without mention Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 1566-7 (2nd ed. 

1575), form which Lyly certainly takes the allusions to Cyrus and 

Panthea(tom. i. 11) on p. 250, to Demosthenes and Lais (torn. i. 15) 

vol. ii. p. 13 1. 28, to Zenobia (torn. ii. 14) on p. 210 1. 4, and possibly 

others: Fortescue's Foreste or Collection of Histories, no lesse profitable 

then pleasant and necessarie, dooen out of Frenche into Englishe by 

Thomas Fortescue... London ... 15 71, 4 0 , from which Lyly borrowed 

perhaps some of his title, some of his stories about Apelles, and the 

tale about moles and frogs on p. 249: Sir Geoffrey Fenton's 

Certaine Tragicall Discourses written oute of Frenche and Latin .. . 

London . , . 1567, 4 0 , whose third tale certainly gave him hints 

1 "Iohn Heywoodes woorkes. A dialogue conteyning the number of the 

effectuall prouerbes in the Englishe tounge, compact in a matter concernynge two 

maner of maryages. With one hundred of Epigrammes: and three hundred of Epigrammes 

vpon three hundred prouerbes: and a fifth hundred of Epigrams. Whervnto 

are now newly added a syxt hundred of Epigrams by the sayde Iohn Heywood, 

Thomas Powell: London, 156a." B. L. 8vo. Reprinted in 1566 and 1576.

THE FIRST ENGLISH NOVEL 159 

later on for The Woman in the Moone: and, lastly, the Hundreth 

sundrie Flowres (1573), which appeared in authorized form as The 

Posies of George Gascoigne, 1575, whose short prose tale, The 

Aduentures passed by Master F, I, (Ferdinando Ieronimo), in its 

subject-matter, its love-making, its letters, the coquetry of its heroine 

Elinor, and its general aspect as a picture of polite society, forms the 

only anticipation of Euphues in English literature 1. 

For when we turn our attention from the style and the sources THE BOOK 

of the book to its actual contents, we find that has in reality ITSELF 

excellent claims to be considered an original work. [It is, in effect, English 

nothing less than the first English novel, the first holding-up to noucl, 

English men and women of the mirror of their own life and loves 2 . 

In Euphues we may actually mark the beginning of the inset of that 

mighty tide of prose fiction, which now, racing wide across the 

muddy flats and flooding up every hidden creek and inlet, is 

menacing ancient landmarks, and infecting and staying the limpid 

current of our mountain springs. The departure was half unconscious. 

A distinction should be drawn between the two Parts, 

a distinction of which the author was quite aware. It is shown even 

in their titles. That of the First Part contemplates only a male 

audience, and is rather an essay in philosophy than in fiction proper. 

The author's real object is to string together moral reflections on 

grave subjects, the gathered results of various reading.] Among 

these friendship holds a prominent place, a theme suggested, no 

doubt, by Cicero's treatise, of which there were already three several 

English translations. [ The form of a love-tale, though his own 

sympathies went along with it, was rather the presentation of folly 

under which he might shoot his wit, and win attention to a young 

man's utterance on questions of moment. The Anatomy of Wyt, 

as a whole, deserves to be considered rather as the prototype of 

the novel with a purpose than of the novel in general.] But in the 

Second Part this didactic aim is very much modified. ' Had I not 

named Euphues,' says the author in his dedication, 'fewe woulde 

haue thought it had bene Euphues V The title, observe, has no 

1 See p. 175 note. To these should be added some echoes in Part II of 

Sannazarro's Arcadia', see vol. ii. pp. 473 sqq. Note on Italian Influence. 

2 Friendship, already dealt with by Richard Edwardes in Damon and Piihias 

(cf. p. 186 1.14 note), and (presumably) in Palamon and Arcite, holds a prominent 

place also in Euphues and his England, in Campaspe (Alexander, Hephaestion and 

Apelles), and in Endimion between the hero and Kumenides. 

3 Vol. ii. p. 5 1. 14.

16o INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 

addressed invidious mention of 'Gentlemen,' no allusion to moral benefit to 

to women. be derived. Aiming now where moral improvement is inconceivable, 

we offer merely a liberal promise of amusement, ' pretie discourses 

of honest Loue,' and an assurance that these delights may 

be tasted harmlessly. And, turning the opening leaves, one finds 

the author, his duty paid to his patron, addressing himself directly 

' To the Ladies and Gentlewoemen of England,' openly professing 

that it is for them he writes. Let them read him as and when they 

like; let them merely finger his pages as they loll with the little 

dogs in their laps, even though they drop asleep the while. ' Euphues 

had rather lye shut in a Ladyes casket, then open in a 

Schollers studie'; and he has taken the most particular care ' that 

there shall be nothing found that may offend the chast minde with 

vnseemely tearmes, or vncleanly talke1.' We have never had this 

sort of thing before: or, if Pettie's friend ' R. B.' did preface his 

collection of old-world love-tales with an address 'To the gentle 

Gentlewomen Readers,' he said nothing so absolute as this. The 

men are nowhere, or at best are dismissed in curt business-like 

fashion when the claims of the fair are satisfied. It seems as if, 

in the wide attention aroused by his misogynist remarks in the 

First Part, Lyly had recognized his opportunity. He becomes aware 

of the mine he has opened, and works now with full consciousness 

in a form suggested, indeed, by the Italian novelists, but none the 

less original in English literature—the form of a romance of polite 

society. Lit is the first and triumphant assertion, by an English 

author, of literary interest to be derived, not from tales of classical 

history or mythology, nor from the adventures of mediaeval chivalry, 

but from the social intercourse of the modern world. ' With Euphues,' 

says M. Jusserand, ' commences in England the literature of the 

drawing-room 2.' 

Consequent As a consequence the portraiture of love and lovers is completely 

modernity, changed. In the chivalric romance our attention is asked for the 

dangers and hardships of the hero in its pursuit, or for the misfortunes 

and fidelity of the heroine.,' Lyly dwells upon love and 

love-making rather as the chief subject of interest and conversation, 

the underlying motive and mainspring of social intercourse, than 

for its own sake. It is polite society, its methods and customs, with 

1 Vol. ii. pp. 9 l. 4, 1o 1. 1o. 

2 The English Novel in the time of Shakespeare, p. 105 (ed. 1894).

PORTRAYS THE MODERN SOCIAL WORLD 161 

which he is really concerned ]the meeting and dalliance of young 

men and women, with the elders as a background, the oeillades, the 

polite speeches, the ' priuie nippes,' the repartees, the secret pangs, 

raptures and despairs, all, in fact, that women delight in, the whole 

imported charm that the passion derives from the fact that it is 

subject to the restraints and refinements of polite society. [Lyly's 

Cupid walks amid hothouse blooms and trim parterres, not in woodland 

glade or mountain upland. For the first time an author realizes 

that he must look to the verdict of the women as well as, or instead 

of, the men; and that women, whatever their culture, are always far 

more interested in the living and practical present than in the most, 

romantic aspect of the past. So, in Euphues, the feminine interest 

cracks at length the mould of knightly adventure in which it has long 

been forming. The masculine side, of prowess and achievement, is 

frankly discarded for the inner or mental side, the subjective history, 

of the tender passion; and we pass at once from mediaevalism and 

classic survival, and enter the modern world. We change lance and 

war-horse for walking-sword and pumps and silk stockings. We 

forget the filletted brows and wind-blown hair, the zone, the flowing 

robe, the sandalled or buskined feet, and feel the dawning empire 

of the fan, the glove, the high-heeled shoe, the bonnet, the petticoat 

and the parasol. With Lyly, in fact, we enter the path which leads 

to the Restoration dramatists, to Addison and to Pope; and in 

Lucilla and Camilla we are prescient of Millamant and Belind] 

Some sort of example for this great change Lyly might find in the 

translation oiFilocopo, mentioned above (p. 135), and still more in that 

of Castiglione'sIl Cortegiano, a book which, while taking leave of 

chivalric adventure, admirably embodies that spirit of fine courtesy 

and upright manliness which is the great bequest of chivalry to the 

world. But in Lyly the narrative thread assumes more importance The tale. 

than in The Courtyer, where it forms the merest framework; and the 

chivalric spirit undergoes large modifications. For the. story of 

Euphues is the story of a young man's passion and disillusion, 

disillusion followed by a gradual and partial leconstruction of his 

faith* in woman, though never of his happiness. Lucilla, the girl 

of whose affections he has robbed his friend and who soon deserts 

him for another, dies before the end of the First Part; and while 

Phiiautus easily finds consolation in England, Euphues appears 

henceforward as the old young man, the philosopher before his time, 

bitterly cynical at first, afterwards taking a somewhat melancholy 

BOND I M

l62 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 

pleasure in observing the workings of a passion in which he has 

no further share. His chief occupation in the Second Part, where 

he is hardly the protagonist, is to sermonize and watch over the 

successive courtships of Philautus; and, at the close, while the rest 

are marrying and giving in marriage, he retires to indulge his 

melancholy vein in a lonely cave in the mountain of Silixsedra. 

Deficiency [ The book, being far less a picture of passion than of courtly 

ojacton.society, is consequently artificial, divorced from homely realities. 

It is deficient, too, in characterization and in pathos; but undoubtedly 

its chief defect is its want of action. 7 It is shown in that 

hasty slurring over of events important to the tale on which I have 

commented above1; and instances of similar indifference may be 

found in one or two textual errors of names 2 , and in the reference, vol. 

ii. p. 14 1.19, to Philautus' wish to answer, rather than admit the force 

of, the ' Cooling Carde,' a reference which ignores the intervention of 

' tenne yeares,' vol. i. p. 2861. 28. The want of action is probably referable 

to poverty of invention, which leads Lyly to expend his effort mainly 

Parallel- on discourses. Poverty of invention is discerned in the parallelism 

ism of the of the two Parts. The theme of reckless youth warned by old age, 

two Parts. J / 

represented by Euphues and Eubulus in Part I, is repeated in Callimachus 

and Cassander and in Fidus and Philautus in Part II. 

Euphues' love disappointment in Part I is repeated in those of Fidus 

and Philautus in Part II. In both Parts there is a quarrel and 

a reconciliation between the two friends; and Camilla's reception 

of Philautus' suit (as Iffida's of Fidus') is reminiscent of Lucilla's 

The Second initial prudery to Euphues. Nevertheless a distinct advance in art 

better may be claimed for the Second. Much more space is allowed to 

action; the voyage and journey of the friends are dwelt upon; 

Dover and London are described; social forms are reported in fuller 

detail. The characters, too, are more numerous; Fidus, Philautus, 

Iffida and Camilla being drawn with spirit: and variety is sought 

not only in incident, e.g. the appeal to Psellus, the quarrel and 

reconciliation between the friends, the rival suit of Surius, and the 

transfer of Philautus' affection from Camilla to Fraunces, but in such 

little matters as change of scene (the masque, vol. ii. p. 103 1. 27; the 

garden, p. 134 1. 3; the supper-party, p. 162), and still more in the 

1 P. 141. 

3 P. 214 1.35 'Euphues' put for' Philautus'; p. 3101.1' Ferardo' for' Eubulus' 

(corrected in the second ed.); vol. ii. p. 51 1. 26 'But he,' i.e. Philautus, who 

has not been recently named.

MERITS AND DEFECTS 163 

relation of the stories of Callimachus and of Fidus' courtship of 

Iffida, wherein a note of real pathos is struck. There is far less 

purely didactic matter: even though Euphues can always be relied 

on for a lecture, his preaching has a more immediate bearing on the 

action; and the letters, which in Part I were almost all thrown into 

a batch at the end, are now interwoven with the tale and minister 

to its interest. Nevertheless, the tediousness, for which Lyly once 

or twice apologized in the former work 1, is still felt; and [the book, 

as a whole, has another prime defect—one of humour.] Noamount Defect of 

of painful experience or repented folly can justify The ghastly prig- humour - 

gishness of Euphues' letter to the aged Eubulus in Part I, or even 

of his tone to Livia, p. 320, or to Philautus throughout the Second 

Part. Yet the latter affords evidence that this fault, too, had been 

partly perceived; for there is humour in the spectacle of Philautus 

lying too seasick to resent Euphues' tirade, vol. ii. pp. 33-4, in the 

timidity of Psellus confronted with the angry lover, and the ridicule 

he casts on love-charms, pp. 114--6, still more in the way Philautus 

attempts to turn the tables on his preaching friend, pp. 92-4, 

where, if the opportunity is a little marred by Philautus' real anger, 

it at least serves to betray Lyly's consciousness that sedate wisdom 

in a young man may be overdone. To these we may add 'his feet 

shold haue ben olde Helena,' p. 7 1. 11, and what is meant, I think, 

for a hit at travellers' tales on p. 34 11. 22 sqq. 

Further, there are passages where the excessive mannerism does Eloquence 

not prevent the attainment of a real, if but momentary, eloquence 2 and shre 

; 

and the book abounds in shrewd good sense, strong enough sometimesto 

overbear its priggish and pragmatical veirifas when Euphues 

tells Eubulus that the standard of conduct for ymith and ' crabbed 

age' can never be the same, p. 192, or Callimachus retorts on Cassander 

that the latter's mishaps as a traveller are no argument to persuade 

all men to stay at home, vol. ii. p. 2 711.25 sqq., or when the author 

decides with Philautus, p. 160 1. 29, 'that the ende of loue is the full 

fruition of the partie beloued'; and in apophthegms not unworthy, 

some of them, of a place in Bacon's Essays, e.g., ii. p. 23 1.27,' those 

that giue themselues to be bookish, are oftentimes so blockish, that 

1 e.g. PP. 198 1.8 and 215 1.10 'but I will not trouble you with superfluous 

addition, vnto whom I feare mee I have bene tedious, with the bare discourse of 

this rude historic.' 

2 Among such may be reckoned p. 202 1. 13 'How franticke are those loners 

... siluer potte'; p. 252 'Heere shalt thou beholde . .. slippe into thegraue 1 ; 

and vol. ii. p. 88 1. 30 Philautus' apostrophe of Italy and her vices. 

M2


they forget thrift,' or vol. i. p. 308 1. 18, of courtiers, 'All yt see not 

their folly, they account fooles, & all that speake against it, precise.' 

And if Lyly's wisdom sometimes wears to modern ears the air 

of platitude, it must be carefully remembered that he wrote in an 

age when the classics were still new, before Plato and Aristotle, 

Cicero and Plutarch and Seneca had poured their enriching flood 

into the stream of English literature. If Bacon and Shakespeare 

and the prose-writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 

expressed this wisdom more happily and less laboriously, it was 

Euphues who had first taught them to assimilate the fine material. 

It is no rhetorical figure to say that Lyly was almost the first 

Englishman into whose mind the philosophy of the ancients had 

sunk with fructifying power for English letters]; and if an exception 

can be claimed in Sir Thomas More, yet Lyly introduces us to 

a range of thought and knowledge at once wider and more intimate, 

embodies it in a more attractive and original form, and obtains 

for it a far wider and more influential circulation. To trace in 

detail all the sentiment that Lyly may have fathered in the writings 

of his immediate contemporaries and successors would be a useless 

and impossible task; but in the case of the most famous of them 

all it appears proper to point out the evidence of a close acquaintance 

with Lyly's two novels, evidence all the more convincing when 

we reflect that Shakespeare could claim no classical scholarship 

at all on a par with that of his highly-educated predecessor. In 

a volume entitled Shakespeare's Euphuism (London: 1871, 8vo), 

Mr. W. L. Rushton pointed out many of the following parallels. 

Some of those noted by him were merely instances of the employment 

by both of some common proverb or phrase; some I had 

independently observed; others have not, so far as I am aware, 

been noticed before at all. I present the collection without distinction, 

excluding all that strike me as merely proverbial. 

shake- Three instances, in the best-known plays, may be placed in the 

debt to forefront. The first is from Hamlet. The general opposition of 

1 Euphues' character between Euphues and Philautus is reflected in Valentine 

and Proteus, in Romeo and Paris, and in Hamlet and Laertes; but 

in the last of these cases the likeness is pointed by the fact that both 

Philautus and Laertes, in a foreign land, have a countryman named 

Reynaldo interested in them l , and by the further fact that Philautus 

is lectured by Euphues in words which, borrowed in part from the 

1 Euphues and his England, p. 97 1. 1.

EUPHUES AND SHAKESPEARE 165 

aged Eubulus 1, are obviously the original of Polonius' famous advice 

to Laertes, and intended, like that, to furnish Philautus with a guide 

to his conduct in a foreign country. 

EUPHUES. 

Vol. ii. pages 30-1. 

POLONIUS. 

' if these few precepts I giue thee be ' these few precepts in thy memory 

obserned' 

See thou character' 

'At thy comming into England .. . 

be not lauish of thy tongue' 

' euery one that shaketh thee by the 

hand is not joined to thee in heart': 

Cf. vol. i. p. 281 1. 15 'Wee should 

not shake every man by the hand: that 

is, we should not contract friendshippe 

wyth all': vol. ii. p. 149 1. 30 'Trust 

them thou hast tried.' 

' Be not quarrellous for euery lyght 

occasion' 

' It shal be there better to heare what 

they say, the" to speak what thou 

thinkest' 

Page 286. 

'Be merry but with modestie, be 

sober but not too sullen: be valiaunt 

but not too venturous: let your attire 

be comely, but not too costly . . . feare 

God, loue God, and God will blesse 

you.' 

' Give thy thoughts no tongue' 

' Be thou familiar, but by no means 

vulgar. 

Those friends thou hast, and their 

adoption tried, 

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops 

of steel, 

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 

Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade.' 

' Beware of entrance to a quarrel' 

' Give every man thy ear, but few thy 

voice: 

Take each man's censure, but reserve 

thy judgement' 

' Costly thy habit . 

. . . This above all 

be true, 

rich not gaudy; 

to thine ownself 

And it must follow, as the night the day, 

Thou canst not then be false to any 

man.' 

The second instance is from Borneo and Juliet, where the relations 

between Capulet, Juliet, Paris, and Romeo form a curious, and sometimes 

close verbal, reproduction of those between Ferardo, Lucilla, 

Philautus, and Euphues. 

EUPHUES. 

Page 199. 

' Philautus... crepte into credite with 

Don Ferardo, one of the chiefe gouernours 

of the citie ... his daughter heire 

to his whole reuenews' 

ROMEO AND JULIET. 

i. 2. 

Paris sues the wealthy and important 

old Capulet for the hand of' his sole 

daughter and heiress. 

1 P. 189 I.34, the passage beginning 'Descende into thine owne conscience,' 

&c, repeated near the close of Euphues and his Ephoebus, p. 286 11. 6-16, and 

partly incorporated with the lecture from which I mainly quote, vol. ii. p. 31.


EUPHUES. 

Page 227 1.7. 

Ferardo, after Philautus has ' serued 

... threeyeares faithfully' (p. 232 1. 33), 

' beeinge willinge to haue the match 

made, was content incontinently to 

procure the meanes' 

Page 219 I.34. 

Lucilla fears ' that if she should yeelde 

at the first assault, he (Euphues) woulde 

thinke hir a lyght huswife.' 

Page 213 1.12. 

' Neither can there bee vnder so delicate 

a hew lodged deceite' &c. 

Page 227 1. 17. Ferardo to Lucilla 

about Philautus— 

' Mine onely care hath bene hetherto 

to match thee ... At the laste I haue 

founde one aunswerable to my desire, 

a gentleman of great reuenewes, of a 

noble progenie, of honest behauiour, of 

comely personage,' &c. 

Page 228 1. 28. 

Lucilla 4 cannot but smile to heare . .. 

that the woeing should bee a day after 

the weddinge': 

Page 229 1.11. 

* My duetie therefore euer reserued, 

I heere on my knees forsweare Philautus 

. . . seeing I shall hardly bee induced 

euer to match with any' &c. 


iii. 4. 

Capulet, after putting Paris off in 

i. 2, is now eager to arrange the match 

at once, and puts it forward by a further 

day in iv. 2. 

ii. 2. 95 (Juliet to Romeo). 

' Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, 

I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee 

nay, 

So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the 

world!' 

*iii. 2. 84. 

'0 that deceit should dwell 

In such a gorgeous palace !' 

*iii. 5. 179. Capulet about Juliet and 

Paris— 

' Alone, in company, still my care hath 

been 

To have her match'd: and having now 

provided 

A gentleman of noble parentage, 

Of fair demesnes, youthful and nobly 

train'd, 

Stuff d, as they say, with honourable 

parts, 

Proportioned as one's thought would 

wish a mau' &c. 

*iii. 5. 118 (Juliet). 

' I wonder at this haste; that I must 

wed 

Ere he, that should be husband, comes 

to woo.' 

iii. 5. 120. 

'I pray you, tell my lord and father, 

madam, 

I will not marry yet' &c. 

*iii. 5. 159. 

*Good father, I beseech you on my 

knees' &c. 

* It is noticeable that the five parallels to which I have affixed an asterisk appear 

first only in the Second Quarto of Romeo and Juliet, 1599. The bulk, both of 

these reminiscences and of euphuistic prose-passages (p. 153, note), are found in 

the work of the middle portion of Shakespeare's dramatic career.


EUPHUES. 

Page 243 1. 26 (Ferardo). 

'I that am father to one more then 

I would be although one be all, haue 

that one most disobedient to me in a request 

lawfull and reasonable.' 

Page 241 11. 37 sqq. Euphues recognizes 

the element of excess in his conduct— 

' Most true it is that the thing y e 

better it is the greater is the abuse, and 

that ther is nothing but through the 

mallice of man may be abused. .. Doth 

not Treacle as wel poyson as helpe? 

... Is not poyson taken out of the 

Honnysuckle by the Spider, venime out 

of the Rose by the Canker,' &c. 

Page 218 1. 22, vol. ii. p. 73 1. 22. 

' one droppe of poyson disperseth it 

selfe into euerye vaine.' 


iii. 5. 165 (Capulet). 

' Wife, we scarce thought us bless'd, 

That God hath lent us but this only 

child; 

But now I see this one is one too much, 

And that we have a curse in having her.' 

ii. 3. 19. Romeo receives counsels of 

moderation from the Friar, whose 

previous moralizings are verbally reproductive 

of the passage opposite— 

' Naught so good, but strain'd from that 

fair use, 

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on 

abuse. 

. . . Within the infant rind of this small 

flower 

Poison hath residence and medicine 

power . .. 

Two such opposed kings encamp them 

still, 

In man as well as herbs, grace and rude 

will' &c. 

v. 1. 60. 

' A dram of poison, such soon-speeding 

gear 

*As will disperse itself through all the 

veins.' 

My third instance is Jaques in As You Like If, who is simply 

Euphues Redivivus. In Lodge's Rosalynd, on which Shakespeare 

founded his drama, Euphues is the supposed author of the tale, 

which professes to have been 'found after his death in his Cell 

at SilexedraV Shakespeare, therefore, admits Euphues himself to 

a share in the events he is supposed to have related, under the name 

of 'the melancholy Jaques,' who accordingly presents the familiar 

features of Lyly's hero. Like Euphues, Jaques has made false steps 

in youth, which have somewhat darkened his views of life: like 

Euphues, he conceals under a veil of sententious satire a real goodness 

of heart, shown in his action towards Audrey and Touchstone. 

A traveller, like Euphues or like Cassander 2 , he has ' a melancholy 

of his own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many 

objects'; and is prepared, as his prototype actually does, to lecture 

1 Title-page of edition of 1592. 

2 Vol. ii. p. 271. 24 ' you haue bene a Trauailer and tasted nothing but sowre,' &c.


his contemporaries on every conceivable theme. He will moralize 

every spectacle, and, free charter given, 

' will through and through 

Cleanse the foul body of the infected world.' 

Finally, like Euphues, he is something out of harmony with 

youthful pastimes and the life of luxury and dalliance \ While the 

others are busy with wedding festivities and their return to Court, 

Jaques bethinks him of matter to be learned from a converted duke, 

as Euphues learned from Fidus or the hermit Cassander, and retires, 

like Euphues to Silixsedra, to indulge his melancholy at the ' deserted 

cave.' These resemblances and the full title of Lodge's novel 

considered, it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that we have 

in Jaques a reproduction of, and a verdict on, the hero of Lyly's 

famous book 2 . 

The large remainder of parallel passages must be relegated to 

a separate table, where I have arranged them in the chronological 1 

order of Shakespeare's plays (pp. 169-175). The reader will find 

there close verbal resemblance between sentiments in Euphues and 

utterances of Gaunt, of the king in All's Well, of Hamlet, of Thersites, 

of Othello and Iago, of Prospero and of Perdita. Philautus in 

love recalls the names of great conquerors who have suffered from 

the same flames, and Armado imitates him. Falstaff's humorous 

complaint of the Chief Justice's intolerance of youthful follies seems 

borrowed, with the addition of the humour, from Euphues' answer 

to Eubulus' lecture. Philautus' dispatch of a love-letter to Camilla 

in a pomegranate, from which the kernel has been extracted, is made 

the subject of one of Lafeu's scoffs at Parolles. Rosalind's proposal 

that Orlando shall woo her, as though she were his very Rosalind, 

is anticipated by Iffida's permission to Fidus to personate her absent 

knight 3 . The rapid change of fashions, and the English medley 

of those of foreign countries finds plenty of illustration "in the novel 

as it does in The Merchant and Much Ado. Beatrice's spiteful 

criticisms of men have been noted by Euphues in the mouths of 

1 The opposition between the sophisticated and the simple life, between Court 

and country, so marked throughout the play, is redolent of Guevara's Menosprecio 

del Corte. That work was translated by Sir Francis Bryan in 1548, and reprinted 

(1575) With title A looking glasse for the Court: but Shakespeare is much more 

likely to have imbibed its spirit through the Euphues. See pp. 137 note, 155. 

2 The parallel was first pointed out in my Quarterly article, Jan. 1896, John 

Lyly: Novelist and Dramatist, p. 127. 

3 In Nash's Jack Wilton (1594), p. 101, Surrey at Venice woos his fair fellowprisoner, 

Diamante, as proxy for his absent Geraldine.


women generally; and the bitter speech of that gentleman about 

the vanity and deceitfulness of the sex 1 is, possibly enough, the 

original suggestion of similar bitterness in the mouths of Hamlet, 

of Troilus, of Othello and Posthumus. ( Even the similes from 

natural history 2 , though part of the common mental furniture of 

the age, are more likely to have reached Shakespeare through Lyly 

than by any other channel) If I have included in my list of parallels 

one or two where the chances of connexion and independence are 

about equal, yet I believe the student will acknowledge that the 

great majority are too close to be the result of chance. Doubtless 

many more could be cited, with more diligent search; but enough 

are given to prove Shakespeare's intimate knowledge of the two 

Parts of Euphues, and with this proof I may fitly commend the 

reader to the text. In the essay in the second volume on 'Lyly 

as a Playwright,' I have endeavoured to show how Shakespeare is 

indebted to our author not merely for phrases, similes or ideas, but 

in the more important matter of dramatic technique. 

SHAKESPEARIAN PARALLELS OF PASSAGES IN 

EUPHUES. 

EUPHUES. SHAKESPEARE. 

Page 225 1. 35 (also 317 1. 12). L. L. L. i. 1. 204. 

1 

not his great mannors, but thy good 

manners' 

Costard makes the same pun. 

Vol. ii. page 70 1. 18. iv. 1. no. 

' three sutors (and yet neuer a good ' Who is the suitor ? 

Archer)'—pun on ' shooter.' . . . Why she that bears the bow.' 

Vol. ii. page 112 11. 21 sqq. i. 2. 60. 

Philautus in love reminds himself that Armado imitates him. 

great heroes have suffered the same 

flames. 

Page 293 1. 25. 1 Henry VI, i. 1. 2. 

' Comettes, which euer prognosticate ' Comets, importing change of times and 

some straunge mutation' states.' 

Page 221 1.35. 2 Henry VI, iv. 7. 86. 

' rulers (have) large reches' ' Great men have reaching hands.' 

1 Euphues, pp. 248-9, 253-6, vol. ii. 141 11. 22-9. 

2 Such as the jewel in the toad's head [Euph, p. 202, vol. ii. 991. 8, As You Like 

It, ii. 1. 13); the 'kind life-rendering pelican' {Hamlet, iv. 5. 146, Euph. ii. in 

1. 29); the basilisk whose glance is fatal (Euph. ii. 1701. 17, Rich. HI, i. 2.150); or 

the lapwing that 'flyeth with a false cry farre from'her neste' (Euph. ii. 4 1. 18, 

Com. of Errors, iv. 2. 27).


EUPHUES. 

Pages 200-1, 

Euphues and Lucilla play on'shadow' 

and ' substance' 

Vol. ii. page 108 1. 14. 

'things aboue thy height are to be 

looked at, not reached at' (cf. p. 411. 30) 

Page 199. Description of the friendship 

of Euphues and Philautus— 

' they vsed not onely one boord, but 

one bedde, one booke . . . Their friendship 

augmented euery day, insomuch y t 

the one could not refraine y e company 

of y e other one minute, all things went 

in comon betweene them,' &c. 

Page 314 1. 5. 

'Plato would neuer accompt him 

banished . .. wher y e same Sunne & 

the same Moone shined, whereby he 

noted that euery place was a countrey 

to a wise man' &c. 

1. 20 * when it was cast in Diogenes 

teeth that the Synoponetes had banished 

hym Pontus, yea, sayde hee, I them 

of Diogenes.' (From Plutarch.) 

Vol. ii. page 194 1. 15. 

1 The attire they [the English] vse is 

rather ledde by the imitation of others 

. • . nowe vsing the French fashion, 

nowe the Spanish, then the Morisco 

gownes' &c. 

Vol. ii. page 170 1. 9. 

'Loue breedeth by nothing sooner 

than lookes': 

Cf. p. 59 l. 13 ' Loue cometh in at the 

eye' &c. 

SHAKESPEARE. 

Two Gentlemen, iv. 2. 120 sqq. 

Proteus and Silvia play on the same 

words. 

iii. 1. 156. 

' Wilt thou reach stars, because they 

shine on thee ?' 

Mids. N. Dr. iii. 2. 198 sqq. 

' the counsel that we two have shared, 

The sisters* vows, the hours that we have 

spent 

When we have chid the hasty-footed time 

For parting us . . . 

. . . created both one flower, 

Both on one sampler, sitting on one 

cushion, 

Both warbling of one song,' &c. 

Cf. As You Like It, i. 3. 69 : 

' we still have slept together, 

Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat 

together, 

And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's 

swans, 

Still we went coupled and inseparable.' 

Rich. II, i. 3. 275. Gaunt to the 

banished Bolingbroke— 

' All places that the eye of Heaven visits 

Are to a wise man ports and happy 

havens.' 

' Think not the king did banish thee 

But thou the king.' 

Cf. Cor. iii. 3. 122 (to the rabble) 'I 

banish you.' 

Merch, of V. i. 2.73 (of the Englishman), 

' How oddly he is suited! I think he 

bought his doublet in Italy, his round 

hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, 

and his behaviour every where.' 

iii. 2. 63. 

' Tell me where is fancy bred, . . . 

It is engendered in the eyes, 

By gazing fed.'


EUPHUES. 

Page 190 1. 30. 

'Who so seuere as the Stoyckes, which 

lyke stockes were moued with no 

melody?' The pun is repeated p. 210. 

Page 314 1. 34. 

' Philip falling in the dust, and seeing 

the figure of his shape perfect in shewe : 

Good God sayd he, we desire y e whole 

earth and see how little serueth' (from 

Plutarch. Probably, however, the original 

for Shakespeare was either Campaspe, 

v. 4. 55, or Midas, iii. I. 14, 

'What should I doe with a world of 

ground, whose body must be content 

with seaven foot of earth ?') 

Page 192 1. 36. Euphues remonstrates 

with Eubulus— 

' Doe you measure the hotte assaultes 

of youth, by the colde skirmishes of 

age ?' &c. 

Page 251 I.13. 

' The fattest grounde bringeth foorth 

nothing but weedes' 

Page 193 I.19. 

' The Sun shineth vppon the dungehill, 

and is not corrupted ' 

Vol. ii. pages 44-6. 

Fidus' account of his bees. 

Vol. ii. page 60 1. 30. A noble man in 

Sienna, disposed to jest, says to a 

lady— 

' I know not how I shold commend 

your beautie, because it is somwhat to 

brown, nor your stature being somwhat 

to low' &c. 

Page 315 1. 26. 

' Aristotle must dine when it pleaseth 

Philip, Diogenes when it lysteth Diogenes 

' 

SHAKESPEARE. 

Merck, off.v, 1. 8r. 

To be insensible to music is to be 

' stockish, hard, and full of rage.' 

Taming of the Shrew, i. 1. 31. 

' Let's be no Stoics, nor no stocks, I 

pray.' 

1 Henry IV, v. 5. 89 (the Prince over 

Hotspur)— 

'When that this body did contain a 

spirit, 

A kingdom for it was too small a bound; 

But now, two paces of the vilest earth 

Is room enough.' 

2 Henry IV, i. 2. 196 sqq. (Falst,aff) 

' You that are old, consider not the 

capacities of us that are young: you 

measure the heat of our livers with the 

bitterness of your galls' &c. 

iv. 4. 54. 

'Most subject is the fattest soil to 

weeds.' 

Merry Wives, i. 3. 61. 

* Then did the sun on dunghill shine.' 

Henry V,i. 2. 183 sqq. 

Canterbury's description of the bees. 

Much Ado, i. 1. 167. Benedick says of 

Hero— 

' she's too low for a high praise, too 

brown for a fair praise, and too little 

for a great praise; only this commendation 

I can afford her' &c. 

i. 3- 14- 

Don John says—' I must... eat when 

I have a stomach, and wait for no man's 

leisure,' grumbling at his position as 

Don Pedro's courtier.


EUPHUES. 

Vol. ii. page 105 1. 29. Camilla at the 

masque to Philautus— 

'1 neuer looked for a better tale of so 

ill a face.' 

Vol. ii. page 3 1. 24. 

'As froward as the Musition, who, 

being entreated, will scarce sing sol fa ' 

&c. 

Page 249 1. 9. 

' Dost thou not knowe that woemen 

deeme none valyaunt, vnlesse he be too 

venturous ? That they accompte one a 

dastarde, if he be not desperate, a pinche 

penny if he be not prodigal!, if silente 

a sotte, if full of wordes a foole ? Peruersly 

do they alwayes thinck of their 

louers, and talke of them scornfully' 

&c. 

Page 254 1.1. 

' If he be cleanly, then terme they 

him proude, if meane in apparel, a 

slouen, if talle, a longis, if shorte, -a 

dwarfe, if bolde, blunte, if shamefaste, 

a cowarde. Insomuch, as they haue 

neyther meane in theire frumpes, nor 

measure in theire folive.' 

Page 254 1. 17. Euphues recommends 

a like course to Philautus as a cure 

for infatuation— 

'If she be well sette, then call hir 

a Bosse, if slender, a Hasill twigge, if 

Nutbrowne, as blacke as a coale' &c. 

Vol. ii. page 78 11. 24-30. 

Iffida allows Fidus to court her for 

Thirsus. 

Page 247 I.5. 

' Ipse, hee,' of Curio asserting his 

predominance with Lucilla. 

Vol. ii. p. 60 1. 35. 

'why then, quoth he, doest thou 

thinke me a foole? thought is free 

my Lord, quoth she* 

SHAKESPEARE. 

Much Ado, ii. 1. 93. Hero to Don 

Pedro at the masque— 

' When I like your favour; for God 

defend the lute should be like the case.' 

ii. 3- 

The reluctance of Balthasar to sing. 

iii. 1. 59. 

' I never yet saw man 

But she would spell him backward: if 

fair-faced, 

She would swear the gentleman should 

be her sister: 

If black, why, Nature drawing of an 

antique 

Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance illheaded 

; 

If low, an agate very vilely cut; 

If speaking, why, a vane blown with all 

winds, 

v 

If silent, why, a block moved with none. 

So turns she every man the wrong side 

out 

And never gives to truth and virtue that 

Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.' 

Taming of Shrew, 

ii. 1. 247. 

' Kate, like the hazel-twig, 

Is straight, and slender; and as drown 

in hue 

As hazel-nuts' &c. 

As You Like It, iii. 2. 447. 

Orlando woos the shepherd-youth for 

his absent Rosalind. 

v. 1. 47. 

Touchstone to William about Audrey— 

'All your writers do consent that 

ipse is he: now, you are not ipse, for I 

am he.' 

Tw. Night, i. 3. 64. 

' Sir Andrew. Fair lady, do you think 

you have fools in hand '. . . . 

' Maria. Now, sir, thought is free.'

EUPHUES AND SHAKESPEARE 

EUPHUES. 

Vol. ii. page 155 1. 12. 

'true loue lacketh a tongue and is 

tryed by the eyes' 

Vol. ii. page 162 1. 4. 

' I can be content with beefe [instead 

of Quailes, proposed] . . . my wit will 

shew with what grosse diot I haue 

beene brought vp.' 

' addle egg . . . idle head,' an assonance 

found once or twice; also p. 299 

1. 32 ' idle heads . . . adle aunsweres,' 

p. 325 1. 13 ' addle egge . . . idle bird' 

Page 224 1. 10. 

' in the coldest flinte there is hotte 

fire' 

Vol. ii. page 67 1. 5. 

'You talke of your birth, when I 

knowe there is no difference of blouds 

in a basen, and as lyttle doe I esteeme 

those that boast of their ancestours 

and haue themselues no vertue,' &c. 

Cf. the letter to Alcius, vol. i. pp. 316-7. 

Vol. ii. page 125 1. 2. 

Philautus sends a love-letter in a 

pomegranate from which the kernel has 

been extracted. 

Page 193 I.18. 

' It is y° disposition of the thought 

yt altereth y e nature of y e thing' 

Page 289 1. 9. 

'Like the bird in the limebush which 

the more she striueth to get out, ye 

faster she sticketh in' 

SHAKESPEARE. 

Tw. Nighty ii. 2. 19. 

' She made good view of me; indeed, 

so much 

That methought her eyes had lost her 

tongue, 

For she did speak in starts distractedly. 

She loves me, sure.' 

i. 3. 85. 

'lama great eater of beef, and, I 

believe, that does harm to my wit.' 

Tro. and Cr. v. r. 56-8. 

'Agamemnon . . . loves quails, but 

he has not so much brain as earwax.' 

Cf. ii. 1.14 (of Ajax) ' beef-witted lord.' 

i. 2. 133. 

' addle egg . . . idle head.' 

iii. 3- 257. 

' it lies as coldly in him as fire in a 

flint.' 

All's Well ii. 3. 125. 

' Strange is it that our bloods 

Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all 

together, 

Would quite confound distinction, yet 

stand off 

In difference so mighty ! . . . 

. . . that is honour's scorn 

Which challenges itself as honour's born 

And is not like the sire,' &c. 

ii. 3- 375. 

Parolles has been 'beaten in Italy 

for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate.' 

Hamlet, ii. 2. 255. 

' There is nothing good or bad, but 

thinking makes it so.' 

iii. 3. 69. 

'O limed soul, that struggling to be 

free 

Art more engaged.'

174 

EUPHUES. 

Page 214 1.1. 

'Seing a desperate disease is to be 

comitted to a desperate Doctor' 

Page 255 1.8. 

' Cardinals curtisans' 

Page 188. 

'a woman so exquisite that . . . 

Pigmalions Image was not halfe so 

excellent, hauing one hande in hys 

pocket as notinge their thefte* &c. 

Pages 187-8. 

Eubulus, lecturing Euphues— 

'. . . good Gardeiners who in their 

curious knottes mixeHisoppewythTime 

. . . sowed Hempe before Wheat, that 

is discipline before affection.' 

Page 206 1.1. 

' the broken boane once sette together 

is stronger then euer it was' 

Vol. ii. page 101 1. 23. 

* Flatter me not to make me better 

than I am, belye me not to make me 

worse: forge nothing of malice, conceal 

nothing for loue.' 

Vol. ii. page 116. 

Psellus enumerates various parts of 

animals used in brewing love-charms. 

Vol. ii. page 98 1. 25. 

' With the Ægyptian thou playest 

fast and loose.' 

Vol. ii. page 18 1. 5. 

'The torch tourned downward is 

extinguished with the self-same wax 

which was the cause of his light' 


SHAKESPEARE. 

Ham. iv. 3. 9. 

' diseases desperate grown 

By desperate appliance are relieved.' 

Meas.for Meas. ii. 1. 81. 

*'a woman cardinally given.' 

in. 2. 45. 

' What, is there none of Pygmalion's 

images, newly made woman, to be had 

now, for putting the hand in the pocket 

and extracting it clutch'd ?' 

Othello, i. 3. 324. 

Iago similarly compares the discipline 

of fleshly desires to the work of ' gardeners 

' who 'set hyssop and weed up 

thyme' &c. Cf. Z. Z. Z. i. 1. 249 

' thy curious-knotted garden.' 

ii. 3. 320. 

' This broken joint. . . entreat her to 

splinter; . . . this crack of your love 

shall grow stronger than it was before.' 

v. 2. 342. 

' Speak of me as I am: nothing extenuate, 

Nor aught set down in malice.' 

Macbeth, i. 3 and iv. I. 

Some of the vocabulary of the Witches' 

incantation may be derived from or 

suggested by that passage. 

Ant. and Chop. iv. 12. 28. 

'Like a right gipsy hath at fast and 

loose 

Beguiled me to the very heart of loss.' 

Pericles, ii. 2. 32. 

The device of the fourth knight is— 

'A burning torch that's turned upside 

down; 

The word, Quod me alit, me extinguit' 

(Perhaps suggested to both authors 

by some book of Emblems.)


EUPHUES. 

Page 202 1. 5. 

' if we respect more the outward shape 

then the inwarde habit . . . into what 

blyndenesse are we ledde!' 

Page 222 1.17. 

' swill the drinke that will expire thy 

date' 

Vol. ii. page 21 1. 35. 

'hadde not . . . the certeyntie and 

assurance of our Mothers fidelitie perswaded 

the world we had one father . . . 

it woulde verye hardelye haue beene 

thought' &c. 

Vol. ii. page 43 1. 35. 

' how vaine is it . . . that the foote 

should neglect his office to correct the 

face* 

Vol. ii. page 224 1. 34. 

'Women are starke mad if they be 

ruled by might, but with a gentle raine 

they will bear a white mouth' 

Vol. ii. page 54 1. 34. 

1 It is pitie Lady you want a pulpit, 

hauing preached so well ouer the pot' 

(of Iffida) 

Vol. ii. page 39 1. 4. 

' Cæsar reioyced . . . when hee heard 

that they talked of his valyant exploits 

in simple cottages, alledging this, that 

a bright Sunne shineth in every corner.' 

SHAKESPEARE. 

Per. ii. 2. 56. 

' Opinion's but a fool, that makes us 

scan 

The outward habit by (for ?) the inward 

man.' 

iii. 4. 14. 

' till your date expire' i.e. till your 

death. 

Tempest, i. 2. 56. 

' Mir. Sir are not you my father ? 

Prop. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, 

and 

She said thou wast my daughter.' 

i. 2. 472. 

1 My foot my tutor !' 

Wint. Tale, i. 2. 94. 

' you may ride 's 

With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, 

ere 

With spur we heat an acre.' 

iv. 4. 592. 

' I cannot say 'tis pity 

She lacks instructions, for she seems a 

mistress 

To most that teach' (of Perdita). 

iv. 4- 455- 

' The self-same sun that shines upon his 

court 

Hides not his visage from our cottage, 

but 

Looks on alike.' 

NOTE.—I must add to what I have said about Lyly's sources above, that his 

language in certain places, e.g. pp. 201 11. 32sqq., 216-7, 241, vol.ii. P. 61 1. 5, 

213 1. 3, suggests that he was familiar with Lodovico Domenichi's La Nobilta delle 

Donne (Venice, 1549), or with G. F. Capella's Delia Eccellenza et Dignita delle 

Donne (Rome, 1525), or at least with one of those English discussions on the 

respective merits of the sexes, entered in the Stationers' Register under early years 

(e.g. 'The Defense of Women,' 1562 or 3, Arb. Transcript, i. 213), and probably 

founded on the Italian. See Introduction II to my forthcoming edition of Bercher's 

Nobylytye off Wymen for the Roxburgh Club. A late specimen of this kind of 

tract, one which makes pretty free drafts on Euphues itself, is The Araignment of 

Lewde, idle, froward, and vnconstant women, &c., London, 1615. See, further, 

the Note on Italian Influence, vol. ii. pp. 473 sqq.

1 EUPHVES. 

THE ANATOMY 

OF WYT. 

Very pleafant for all Gentle- 

men to reade, and moft necef- 

fary to remember: 

wherin art contained the delights 

that Wyt followeth in his youth by the 

pleafauntnefle of Loue, and the 

happynefle he reapeth in 

age, by 

the perfectnefle of 

Wifedome. 

\ By Iohn Lylly Mafter of 

Arte. Oxon, 

1 Imprinted at London for 

Gabriell Cawood, dwelling 

in Paules Churchyarde. 

BOND I N

SYMBOLS, ETC., USED IN THE TEXTUAL FOOTNOTES 

EDITIONS are referred to by the letter attached to them in the List of Editions, 

pp. 100-3 J where no such letter is attached, by the date, actual or supposed, of 

the edition. The reading of the text is always that of A for Part I, or of M for 

Part II, unless otherwise specified. Where the reading of either of these appears 

in the footnotes, the reading adopted is that of the next edition (T in Part I, A in 

Part II) or of the earliest in which the error of A or M is corrected. 

Every footnote implies a collation of all the old editions down to 1636, except 

those marked with a dagger in the List, i.e. except those of 1585, 1587, 1605, 

1606 of Part I, and of 1581-1592, 1605,1613 of Part II, though for 1582 (G) of 

Part II I have reproduced the variations or omissions reported in Arber's text. 

For example, ' B' or ' C-E' attached to any variant or omission reported implies 

that all collated editions before and after B, or before C and after E, follow the 

reading of the text. 

' Rest' after a symbol (' G rest,' ' Frest') implies the agreement of all subsequent 

editions with that denoted by the symbol. 

i Before ' and ' after' always relate to some word or words added, not to words 

merely substituted, nor to a mere transposition. 

'Only' after a symbol means that the word (or words) cited in the note is 

unrepresented by any word at all, like or unlike, in the o'ther collated editions. • 

If a word cited from a line in the text occurs more than once in that line, it has 

a small distinguishing number affixed to it in the footnote ; thus, his 1 ]. 

Unless the footnote be solely orthographical, the spelling given therein is not 

necessarily that of any other edition than the first named in such footnote. 

' M' in Part I includes both M 1 and M 2 , which are of the same edition, though 

M 2 is imperfect. ' E' in Part I includes both E 1 and E 2 , which are of different 

though neighbouring editions : it was long before the distinction became apparent 

to me; and since each was bound with and similar in form to the 1597 edition 

of Part II (E), I thought it better to retain the same symbol for both and differentiate 

by numbers.

F To the right honorable my very 

good Lord and Master Sir William West 

Knight, Lord Delaware: Iohn Lyly 

wissheth long lyfe with 

5 encrease of honour. 

PARATIVS drawing the counterfaite of Helen (right honorable) 

made the attier of hir head loose, who being demaunded why 

he dyd so, he aunswered, she was loose. Vulcan was painted 

Ic curiously, yet with a polt foote. Venus cuningly, yet with hir Mole. 

Alexander hauing a Skar in his cheeke helde his finger vpon it that 

Appelles might not paint it, Appelles painted him with his finger 

cleauing to his face, why quod Alexander I layde my finger on my 

Skarre bicause I would not haue thee see it, (yea sayd Appelles) and 

15 I drew it there bicause none els should perceiue it, for if thy finger 

had bene away, either thy Skarre would haue ben seene, or my arte 

mislyked: whereby I gather, that in all perfect workes aswell the 

fault as the face is to be showen. The fairest Leopard is sette downe 

with his spots, the swetest Rose with his prickles, the finest Veluet 

20 with his bracke. Seing then that in euery counterfaite as well the 

blemish as the bewtie is coloured: I hope I shal not incur the 

displeasure of the wise, in that in the discourse of Euphues I haue 

aswel touched the vanities of his loue, as the vertues of his lyfe. 

The Persians who aboue all their Kings most honored Cyrus, caused 

25 him to be engrauen aswel with his hoked nose, as his high forehead. 

He that loued Homer best concealed not his flattering, & he that 

praised Alexander most bewrayed his quaffing. Demonydes must 

1 This Epistle Dedicatory and the following address To the Gentlemen 

Readers are wanting in M 1 which lacks the first four leaves, and in C l , which 

lacks the first five leaves 3 De la wane TM 1 : De la Wane CG: de la 

Warre E rest 9 he om. GE rest 10 plot E Venus . . . Mole A : 

Lgeda . . . blacke haire TM 1 rest 13 quoth E rest 14 yea (said Apelles) 

E rest 18 sette downed: made TM 1 rest 19 his 1 ] the F rest the 

swetest Rose . . . bracke A: the finest cloth with his lyst, the smoothest shooe 

with his laast TM 1 rest, G alone substituting hath his last for with his laast 

24 their] other £ rest 

N2

18o THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY 

haue a crooked shooe for his wry foote Damocles a smoth gloue for 

his streight had. For as euery Paynter that shadoweth a man in all 

parts, giueth euery peece his iust proporcion, so he that disciphereth 

the qualities of the mynde, ought aswell to shew euery humor in his 

kinde, as the other doth euery part in his colour. The Surgion that 5 

maketh the Anatomy sheweth aswel the muscles in the heele, as the 

vaines of the hart. If then the first sight of Euphues, shal seeme to 

light to be read of the wise, or to foolish to be regarded of the 

learned, they ought not to impute it to the iniquitie of the author, 

but to the necessitie of the history. Euphues beginneth with loue i0 

as allured by wyt, but endeth not with lust as bereft of wisedome. 

He wooeth women prouoked by youth, but weddeth not himselfe 

to wantonesse as pricked by pleasure. I haue set down the follies 

of his wit without breach of modestie, & the sparks of his wisedome 

without suspicion of dishonestie. And certes I thinke ther be mo 15 

speaches which for grauitie wil mislyke the foolish, then vnsemely 

termes which for vanitie may offed the wise. Which discourse (right 

Honorable) I hope you wil the rather pardon for the rudenes in that 

it is the first, & protect it the more willingly if it offend in that it 

shalbe the laste. It may be that fine wits wil descant vpon him, 20 

that hauing no wit goeth about .to make the Anatomy of wit; And 

certeinly their iesting in my mynd is tollerable. For if the butcher 

should take vpon him to cut the Anatomy of a man, bicause he hath 

skil in opening an Oxe, he would proue himself a Calfe: or if the 

Horselech would adueture to minister a Potion to a sick patiet, in 25 

that he hath knowledge to giue a drench to a diseased Horse, he 

would make himselfe an Asse. The Shomaker must not go aboue 

his latchet, nor the hedger meddle with anye thing but his bill. It 

is vnsemely for the Paynter to feather a shaft, or the Fletcher to 

handle the pensill. All which thinges make most against me, in 30 

that a foole hath intruded himselfe to discourse of wit. But as 

I was willing to commit the fault, so am I content to make amendes. 

Howsoeuer the case standeth I looke for no prayse for my labour, 

but pardon for my good will: it is the greatest rewarde that I dare 

aske, and the least that they can offer. I desire no more, I deserue 35 

no lesse. Though the stile nothing delight the dayntie eare of the 

curious sifter, yet wil the matter recreate the minde of the courteous 

Reader. The varietie of the one wil abate the harshnes of the 

3 his] a E rest 19 it 1 om. G 20 shalbe] may be TAP rest 23 had 

& rest 37 lifter £

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY 181 

other, Thinges of greatest profit, are sette foorth with least price. 

When the Wyne is neete there needeth no Iuie-bush. The right 

•Coral needeth no colouring. Where the matter it selfe bringeth 

credit, the man with his glose winneth smal commendation. It is 

5 therfore me thinketh a greater show of a pregnant wit, then perfect 

wisedome, in a thing of sufficiet excellencie, to vse superfluous eloquence. 

We comonly see that a black ground doth best beseme 

a white counterfeit. And Venus according to the iudgemgt of Mars, 

was then most amyable, when she sate close by Vulcanus. If these 

1o thinges be true which experience tryeth, that a naked tale doth 

most truely set foorth the naked truth, that where the countenaunce 

is faire, ther neede no colours, that paynting is meter for ragged 

walls the fine Marble, that veritie then shineth most bright whe she 

is in least brauery : I shal satisfie myne own mynde, though I cannot 

15 feede their humors, which greatly seke after those that sift the finest 

meale, & beare the whitest mouthes. It is a world to see how 

English men desire to heare finer speach then the language will 

allow, to eate finer bread then is made of Wheat, to weare finer 

cloth then is wrought of Woll. But I let passe their finenesse, which 

20 can no way excuse my folly. If your Lordship shal accept my good 

wil which I alwaies desired, I will patiently beare the il wil of the 

malicious, which I neuer deserued. 

Thus committing this simple Pamphlet to your 

Lordships patronage, & your Honour to the Almigh- 

25 ties protection: for the preseruation of the which 

as most bounden, I will praye continually, 

I ende. 

Your Lordships seruaunt to 

commaund: I. Lyly. 

2 Where TM 1 rest 4 is] it A 9 Vulcan TM 1 rest 15 that] 

which E rest 17 the] theyr £ rest 18 to 2 ] or E rest 19 made E rest 

21 haue before alwaies TM 1 rest 28 Worships E 29 I. Lyly AC: 

I. Lylly TM": I. Lily G: John Lylie E l : Iohn Lyhe E l rest

To the Gentlemen Readers. 

I 

Was driuen into a quandarie Gentlemen, whether I might send 

this my Pamphlet to the Printer or to the pedler. I thought 

it to bad for the presse, & to good for the packe. But seing my 

folly in writing to be as great as others, I was willing my fortune 

should be as ill as any mans. We commonly see the booke that at 5 

Christmas lyeth bound on the Stacioners stall, at Easter to be broken 

in the Haberdasshers shop, which sith it is the order of proceding, 

I am content this winter to haue my doings read for a toye, that 

in sommer they may be ready for trash. It is not straunge when as 

the greatest wonder lasteth but nyne days : That a newe worke 10 

should not endure but three monethes. Gentlemen vse bookes, 

as gentlewomen handle theyr flowres, who in the morning sticke 

them in their heads, and at night strawe them at their heeles. 

Cheries be fulsome when they be through rype, bicause they be 

piety, & bookes be stale when they be printed, in that they be 15 

common. In my mynde Printers and Taylors are bound chiefely 

to pray for Gentlemen, the one hath so many fantasies to print, 

the other such diuers fashions to make, that the pressing yron of 

the one is neuer out of the fyre, nor the printing presse of the other 

any tyme lyeth still. But a fashion is but a dayes wearing, and 20 

a booke but an howres reading, which seeing it is so, I am of 

a shomakers mynde, who careth not so the shooe hold the plucking 

on, nor I, so my labours last the running ouer. He that commeth 

in print bicause he would be knowen, is lyke the foole that commeth 

into the market bicause he would be seene. I am not he that 25 

seeketh prayse for his labour, but pardon for his offece, neither doe 

I set this foorth for any deuotion in print, but for dutie which I owe 

to my Patrone. If one write neuer so well, he cannot please all, 

5 any mans] anyes TM 1 rest 6 Christmas AM 1 : Midsomer T: Easter C rest 

Easter A M 1 Christmasse T rest 8 winter AM 1 : Summer T rest 9 

sommer AM 1 : Winter T rest 10 newe] now F 16 chiefely bound G rest 

1 8 sundry E rest 20 at before any G rest 22 a] the TM 1 rest 

pulling E 2 rest 23 nor TM 1 rest', and A 24 in] to Frest 27 in] 

to F rest

TO THE GENTLEMEN READERS 183 

and write he neuer so ill hee shall please some. Fine heads will 

pick a quarrell with me if all be not curious, and flatterers a thanke, 

if any thing be currant. But this is my mynde, let him that fyndeth 

fault amende it, and him that liketh it, vse it. Enuie braggeth but 

5 draweth no bloud, the malicious haue more mynde to quippe, then 

might to cut. I submit my selfe to the iudgement of the wise, and 

I little esteme the censure of fooles. The one will be satisfyed with 

reason, the other are to be aunswered with sil6ce. I know gentlemen 

wil fynde no fault without cause, and beare with those that deserue 

10 blame, as for others I care not for their iestes, 

for I neuer ment to make them 

my Iudges. 

Farewell. 

4 a fault E rest liketh] ly- E 2 7 I om. TM l rest 11 meane E 1 rest

EVPHVES. 

THere dwelt in Athens a young gentleman of great patrimonie, 

& of so comely a personage, that it was doubted whether 

he were more bound to Nature for the liniaments of his person, or 

to fortune for the encrease of his possessions. But Nature impatient 

of comparisons, and as it were disdaining a companion, or copartner 5 

in hir working, added to this comlinesse of his body suche a sharpe 

capacitie of minde, that not onely shee proued Fortune counterfaite, 

but was halfe of that opinion that she hir selfe was onely currant. 

This younge gallant, of more wit then wealth, and yet of more 

wealth then wisdome, seeing himselfe inferiour to none in pleasant 10 

conceipts, thought himselfe superiour to al in honest conditions, 

insomuch yt he deemed himselfe so apt to all things, that he gaue 

himselfe almost to nothing, but practising of those things comonly 

which are incident to these sharp wits, fine phrases, smoth quipping, 

merry taunting, vsing iesting without meane, & abusing mirth 15 

without measure. As therefore the sweetest Rose hath his prickel, 

the finest veluet his brack, the fairest flowre his bran, so the sharpest 

witte hath his wanton will, and the holiest heade his wicked waye. 

And true it is that some men write and most men beleeue, that in 

all perfecte shapes, a blemmish bringeth rather a liking euery way 20 

to the eyes, then a loathing any waye to the minde. Venus had hir 

Mole in hir cheeke which made hir more amiable: Helen hir scarre 

on hir chinne which Paris called Cos amorts, the Whetstone of loue. 

Aristippus his wart, Lycurgus his wenne: So likewise in the disposition 

of y e T 

minde, either vertue is ouershadowed with some vice, 25 

or vice ouercast with some vertue. Alexander valiaunt in warre, 

yet gyuen to wine. Tullie eloquent in his gloses, yet vayneglorious : 

Salomon wyse, yet to too wanton: Dauidholye but yet an homicide: 

none more wittie then Euphues, yet at the first none more wicked. 

The freshest colours soonest fade, the teenest Rasor soonest tourneth 30 

4 vnpatient F rest 11 though Trest al his honest ZM 12 thought 

Trest 14 indicent M 14-5 quipping ... iesting] quippes, merry tauntes, 

iestinge TM: quippes, merry tauntes using iestinge C rest 17 finest floure 

E rest 21 ROtn.E rest 33 on] in Trest 25 eitheir A 30 keenest E rest

THE ANATOMY OF WYT 185 

his edge, the finest cloathe is soonest eaten wyth Moathes, and the 

Cambricke sooner stained then the course Canuas: whiche appeared 

well in this Euphues, whose witte beeinge lyke waxe apte to receiue 

any impression, and hauinge the bridle in hys owne handes, either 

5 to vse the raine or the spurre, disdayning counsayle, leauinge his 

countrey, loathinge his olde acquaintance, thought either by wytte 

to obteyne some conquest, or by shame to abyde some conflicte, 

and leauing the rule of reason, rashly ranne vnto destruction, [who 

preferring fancy before friends, & his present humor, before honour 

10 to come, laid reaso in water being to salt for his tast, and followed 

vnbrideled affection, most pleasant for his tooth. When parents 

haue more care how to leaue their childre' wealthy the wise, & are 

more desirous to haue them mainteine the name, then the nature 

of a gentleman: when they put gold into the hands of youth, where 

15 they should put a rod vnder their gyrdle, when in steed of awe they 

make them past grace, & leaue them rich executors of goods, 

& poore executors of godlynes, then is it no meruaile, yt the son 

being left rich by his fathers Will, become retchles by his owne 

wi]L But] 

20 It hath bene an olde sayed sawe, and not of lesse truth then 

antiquitie, that witte is the better if it bee the deerer bought: as 

in the sequele of thys historie shall mosfce manifestlye appeare. It 

happened thys young Impe to ariue at Naples (a place of more 

pleasure then profite, and yet of more profite then pietie) the very 

25 walles and windowes whereof shewed it rather to bee the Tabernacle 

of Venus, then the Temple of Vesta. 

There was all things necessary and in redinesse that myght 

eyther allure the minde to luste, or entice the hearte to follye, a 

courte more meete for an Atheyst, then for one of Athens, for 

30 Ouid then for Aristotle, for a gracelesse louer then for a godly 

lyuer : more fitter for Paris then Hector; and meeter for Flora then 

Diana. 

Heere my youthe (whether for weerinesse hee coulde not, or for 

wantonnesse woulde not goe anye further) determined to make 

35 hys abode: whereby it is euidently seene that the fleetest fishe 

swalloweth the delicatest bayte, that the highest soaring Hawke 

1 the before Moathes G rest 4 hauinge ... handes] bearing the head in his 

owne hande Trest 8 and . . . destruction A only 8-19 who preferring 

. . . will. But (11 lines) added Trest 9 his] this G 17 it is C rest 

18 Father, will F rest by his 2 ] in her G: in his E rest 24 pittie E 

34 woulde] he would E rest

i86 EUPHUES 

trayneth to the lure, and that the wittiest skonce is inuegled wyth the 

soddeyne viewe of alluringe vanities. 

Heere hee wanted no companions whiche courted hym continuallye 

with sundrye kindes of deuises, whereby they myght eyther 

soake hys purse to reape commoditie, or sooth hys person to wynne 5 

credite, for hee had guestes and companions of all sortes. 

There frequented to his lodging and mancion house as well the 

Spider to sucke poyson, of his fine wyt, as the Bee to gather hunny, 

as well the Drone, as the Doue, the Foxe as the Lambe, as well 

Damocles to betraye hym, as Damon to bee true to hym: Yet hee 10 

behaued hymselfe so warilye, that hee [singled his game wiselye. Hee 

coulde easily disceme Appollos Musicke, from Pan his Pype, and 

Venus beautie from Iunos brauerye, and the faith of Zcelius, from 

the flattery of Aristippus, hee welcommed all, but trusted none, hee 

was mery but yet so wary, that neither the flatterer coulde take ad- 15 

uauntage to entrap him in his talke, nor y e wisest any assurance of 

his friendship: who being demaunded of one what countryman he 

was, he answered, what countryman am I not ? if I be in Crete, I can 

lye, if in Greece I can shift, if in Italy I can court it: if thou aske 

whose sonne I am also, I aske thee whose sonne I am not. I can 20 

carous with Alexander, abstaine with Romulus, eate with the Epicure, 

fast with the Stoyck, sleepe with Endimion, watch with Chrisippus, 

vsing these speaches & other like.] an olde Gentleman in Naples 

seeinge hys pregnaunt wytte, his Eloquent tongue somewhat tauntinge, 

yet wyth delight, his myrthe wythout measure, yet not wythout 25 

wytte, hys sayinges vaineglorious, yet pythie, beganne to bewayle hys 

nurture: and to muse at hys Nature, beeinge incensed agaynste the 

one as moste pernicious, and enflamed wyth the other as moste precious 

: for hee well knewe that so rare a wytte woulde in tyme eyther 

breede an intollerable trouble, or bringe an incomperable Treasure 30 

to the common weale : at the one hee greatly pittied, at the other he 

reioysed. 

Hauinge therefore gotten opportunitie to communicate with him 

hys minde, wyth watrye eyes, as one lamentinge his wantonnesse, 

and smilinge face, as one louinge his wittinesse, encountred him on 35 

thys manner. 

1 braine T rest 4 eyther om. E rest 7 and mancion house A only 

11 after hee A adds coulde single out his game wiselye, insomuche that replaced 

in Trest by the bracketed passage 11 -2 3 singled his game wiselye. Hee . . . 

like. An (13 lines) added Trest 15 but] he £ rest 19 Creece G 

20 also om, E rest


Young gentleman, although my acquaintaunce bee small to intreate 

you, and my authoritie lesse to commaund you, yet my good will in 

giuing you good counsaile should induce you to beleeue mee, and 

my hoarie haires (ambassadors of experience) enforce you to follow 

5 mee, for by howe much the more I am a straunger to you, by so 

much the more you are beholdinge to mee, hauing therefore opportunitie 

to vtter my minde, I meane to bee importunate wyth you to 

followe my meaninge. As thy birth doth shewe the expresse and 

liuely Image of gentle bloude, so thy bringing vp seemeth to mee 

10 to bee a greate blotte to the linage of so noble a brute, so that I am 

enforced to thincke that either thou dyddest want one to giue thee 

good instructions, or that thy parentes made thee a wanton wyth to 

much cockeringe, either they were too foolishe in vsinge no discipline, 

or thou too frowarde in reiecting their doctrine, eyther they willinge 

15 to haue thee idle, or thou wylfull to bee ill employed. Dyd they 

not remember that whiche no man ought to forgette, that the tender 

youth of a childe is lyke the temperinge of newe waxe apte to receiue 

any forme? Hee that wyll carry a Bull wyth Milo, must vse to 

carrye him a Calfe also, hee that coueteth to haue a straight tree, 

20 muste not boowe hym beeinge a twigge. The Potter fashioneth his 

claye when it is softe, and the Sparrowe is taught to come when hee 

is younge : As therefore the yron beeinge hotte receyueth any forme 

with the stroake of the Hammer, and keepeth it beeinge colde for 

euer, so the tender witte of a childe if with diligence it bee instructed 

25 in youth, wyll with industrye vse those qualities in hys age. 

They might also haue taken example of the wise husbandmen, who 

in their fattest and most fertill grounde sowe Hempe before Wheate, 

a grayne that dryeth vp the superfluous moysture, and maketh the 

soyle more apte for come: Or of good Gardeiners who in their 

30 curious knottes mixe Hisoppe wyth Time as ayders the one to the 

growth of the other, the one beeinge drye, the other moyste: or 

of cunning Painters who for the whitest woorke caste the blackest 

grounde, to make the Picture more amiable. If therefore 

thy Father had bene as wise an husbandman, as hee was a 

35 fortunate husbande, or thy Mother as good a huswyfe as shee 

was a happye wyfe, if they had bene bothe as good Gardners to 

keepe their knotte, as they were grafters to brynge foorth such fruite, 

6 beholdinge so all good before opportunitie E rest 12 a om, 

F rest 25 hys om. C rest 26 Husbandman E rest 27 their] 

the £ rest soweth E rest 30-1 the growth of om. £ rest 32 the 1 ] 

their G rest 34 an] a E rest

188 EUPHUES 

or as cunninge Painters, as they were happie parentes, no doubte 

they had sowed Hempe before Wheate, that is discipline before 

affection, they had set Hisoppe wyth Time, that is manners wyth 

witte, the one to ayde the other: and to make thy dexteritie more, 

they had caste a blacke grounde for their white woorke, that is, they 5 

had mixed threates wyth faire lookes. 

But thinges past, are paste callinge agayne, it is to late to shutte 

the stable doore when the steede is stolen : The Troyans repented 

to late when their towne was spoiled: Yet the remgbraunce of thy 

former follies might breede in thee a remorse of conscience, and 10 

bee a remedy against further concupiscence. But nowe to thy 

present tyme : The Lacedemonians were wont to shewe their children 

dronken men and other wicked men, that by seeinge theire filth they 

might shunne the lyke faulte, and auoyde suche vices when they were 

at the lyke state. The Persians to make theire youth abhorre glut- 15 

tonie woulde paint an Epicure sleeping with meate in his mouthe, 

& most horribly ouerladen with wine, that by the view of such 

monsterous sightes, they might eschewe the meanes of the like 

excesse. 

The Parthians to cause their youthe to loath the alluringe traines 20 

of womens wyies and deceiptful entisementes, had most curiously 

carued in their houses a younge man blinde, besides whome was 

adioyned a woman so exquisite, that in some mennes iudgement 

Pigmalions Image was not halfe so excellent, hauing one hande in 

hys pocket as notinge their thefte, and holdinge a knyfe in the other 25 

hande to cutte hys throate : If the sight of such vglye shapes caused 

a loathinge of the like sinnes, then my good Euphues consider their 

plight, and beware of thyne owne perill. Thou art heere in Naples 

a younge soiourner, I an olde senior, thou a straunger, I a Citizen, 

thou secure doubtinge no mishappe, I sorrowfull dreadinge thy mis- 30 

fortune. Heere mayste thou see that which I sighe to see, dronken 

sottes wallowinge in euery house, in euery chamber, yea, in euery 

channell, heere maiste thou beholde that whiche I cannot wythout 

blushinge beholde, norwythoute blubbering vtter, those whose bellies 

bee their Gods, who offer their goodes as sacrifice to theyre guttes: 35 

who sleepe wyth meate in their mouthes, wyth sinne in their heartes, 

and wyth shame in their houses. 

3 affaction A 9 thy] their E rest 14 suche] the lyke TM 16 his 

before meate £ rest 17 most om. E rest 21 deciptfull A 25 their] 

hir Trest 32 house] corner G rest 35 as] a E rest to twice G


Heere, yea, heere Euphues, maiste thou see not the carued visarde 

of a lewde woman, but the incarnate visage of a lasciuious wanton, 

not the shaddowe of loue, but the substaunce of luste: My hearte 

melteth in droppes of bloude, to see a harlot with the one hande 

5 robbe so many cofers, and wyth the other to rippe so many 

corses. 

Thou arte heere amiddest the pykes betweene Scilla and Caribdis, 

readye if thou shunne Syrtes, to sincke into Semphlagades. 

Let the Lacedemonian, the Persian, the Parthian, yea, the Neapo- 

10 litan, cause thee rather to detest suche villanie, at the sight and 

viewe of their vanitie. 

! Is it not farre better to abhorre sinnes by the remembraunce of 

others faultes, then by repentaunce of thine owne follies? Is not 

hee accompted moste wise, whome other mens harmes dooe make 

15 moste warie? But thou wylte happely saye, that although there 

bee many thinges in Naples to bee iustlye condemned, yet there 

are some thinges of necessitie to bee commended, and as thy 

wyll doeth leane vnto the one, so thy wytte woulde also embrace 

the other. 

20 . Alas Euphues by how much the more I loue the highe climbinge 

of thy capacitie, by so muche the more I feare thy fall. The fine 

christall is sooner crazed then the harde marble, the greenest Beeche 

burneth faster then the dryest Oke, the fairest silke is soonest soyled, 

and the sweetest wine tourneth to the sharpest vineger, the pestilence 

25 doth most ryfest infect the cleerest complection, and the Caterpiller 

cleaueth vnto the ripest fruite, the most delicate wyt is allured with 

small enticement vnto vice, and moste subiecte to yelde vnto vanitie, 

if therefore thou doe but harken to the Syrens, thou wilte bee 

enamoured, if thou haunte their houses and places, thou shalt be 

30 enchaunted. 

One droppe of poyson infecteth the whole tunne of Wine, one 

leafe of Colliquintida marreth and spoyleth the whole potte of 

porredge, one yron Mole defaceth the whole peece of lawne: 

Descende into thine owne conscience, and consider wyth thy selfe 

35 the greate difference betweene staringe and starke blinde, wit and 

wisdome, loue and lust. Bee merrye but with modestie, be sober 

but not to sulloume, bee valiaunt but not too venterous. Let thy 

4 a] an C rest 8 into] in F rest Semphlegades E test 13 other E 2 

15 happily EF1617 rest 16-7 are there C rest 18 vnto] to E rest 20 

loue] see C rest 22 erased TM, cf.p. 205 1. 28 greenest] greatest C 32 

Colloquintida Mi Coloquintida C rest 33 pottage E rest

190 EUPHUES 

attyre bee comely but not costly, thy dyet wholesome but not excessiue, 

vse pastime as the woorde importeth, to passe the tyme in 

honest recreation : mistrust no man wythout cause, neither bee thou 

credulous without proofe, bee not light to followe euery mans opinion, 

nor obstinate to stande in thine owne conceipte. Serue God, loue 5 

God, feare God, and God wyll so blesse thee as eyther hearte can 

wishe or thy friendes desire. And so I ende my counsaile, beseechinge 

thee to beginne to followe it. Thys olde Gentleman hauinge 

finished his dyscourse, Euphues beganne to shape hym an aunswere 

in this sort. 10 

F 

FAther and friende (your age sheweth the one, your honestie 

the other) I am neither so suspitious to mistrust your good 

will, nor so sottishe to mislike your good counsaile, as I am therefore 

to thancke you for the first, so it standes mee vppon to thincke 

better on the latter: I meane not to cauill wyth you as one louinge 15 

sophistrye, neyther to controwle you as one hauing superioritie, the 

one woulde bring my talke into the suspition of fraude, the other 

conuince me of folly. Whereas you argue I knowe not vppon what 

probabilyties, but sure I am vppon no proofe, that my bringing yp 

shoulde bee a blemish to my birth. I aunswere, and sweare to(o) 20 

that you were not therein a lyttle ouershot, eyther you gaue too 

muche credite to the report of others, or to much lybertie to your 

owne iudgement, you conuince my parents of peeuishnesse, in making 

me a wanton, and me of leaudnesse in reiectinge correction. But 

so many men so many mindes, that may seeme in your eye odious, 25 

which in an others eye may be gratious. Aristippus a Philosopher, 

yet who more courtely ? Diogenes a Philosopher, yet who more 

carterly? Who more popular then Plato, retayning alwayes good 

company ? Who more enuious then Tymo??, denouncing all humaine 

societie ? Who so seuere as the Stoyckes, which lyke stockes were 30 

moued with no melody? Who so secure as the Epicures which 

wallowed in all kinde of licentiousnesse ? Though all men bee 

made of one mettall, yet they bee not cast all in one moulde, there 

is framed of the seife same clay as well the tile to keepe out water as 

the potte to containe lycour, the Sunne doth harden the durte & melt 35 

the waxe, fire maketh the gold to shine and the straw to smother, 

6 hearte] thy hart G rest 15 on] of E rest 20 too] from to in A 

came to that, you in T rest 29 renouncing Frest 30 are E rest 31 

seuere E 1 33 all cast E rest


perfumes doth refresh y e Doue & kill y e Betil, & the nature of the 

man disposeth y t consent of y e maners. Now wheras you seeme 

to loue my nature, & loath my nurture, you bewray your own 

weaknes, in thinking yt nature may any waies be altered by edu- 

5 cation, & as you haue ensaples to confirme your pretece, so I haue 

most euident and infallyble argumentes to serue for my purpose: 

It is naturall for the vyne to spread, the more you seeke by arte to 

alter it, the more in the ende you shall augment it. It is proper for 

the Palme tree to mounte, the heauyer you loade it the higher it 

10 sprowteth. Though yron be made softe with fire it returneth to his 

hardnes, though the Fawlcon be reclaimed to y e fist she retyreth to 

hir haggardnes, the whelpe of a Mastife will neuer be taught to retriue 

the Partridge, education can haue no shew, where the excellence 

of nature doth beare sway. The silly Mouse will by no manner 

15 of meanes be tamed, the subtill Foxe may well be beaten, but neuer 

broken from stealing his pray, if you pownde spices they smell the 

sweeter, season the woode neuer so well the wine will taste of the 

caske, plante and translate the crabbe tree, where, and whensoeuer 

it please you and it will neuer beare sweete apple, [unlesse you graft 

20 by Arte, which nothing toucheth nature.] 

Infinite and innumerable were the examples I coulde alleadge 

and declare to confirme the force of Nature, and confute these your 

vayne and false forgeries, were not the repetition of them needelesse 

hauing shewed sufficient, or bootelesse seeinge those alleadged will 

25 not perswade you. And can you bee so vnnaturall, whome dame 

Nature hath nourished and brought vpp so many yeares, to repine 

as it were agaynst Nature? 

The similytude you rehearse of the waxe, argueth your waxinge 

and melting brayne, and your example of the hotte and harde yron, 

30 sheweth in you but colde and weake disposition. Doe you not 

knowe that which all men doe afrlrme and knowe, that blacke will 

take no other coulour? That the stone Aheston being once made 

hotte will neuer be made colde ? That fire cannot be forced downewarde? 

That Nature will haue course after kinde? That euery 

35 thing will dispose it selfe according to Nature ? Can the Aethiope 

chaunge or alter his skinne? or the Leoparde his hewe? Is it 

1 dooe F rest 2 yt] that T rest seemed E rest 5 I haue] haue I 

E rest 8 may E rest 16 of before his E rest will before smell E rest 

17 shall GEF 19-20 unlesse ... nature added T rest 20 it before by C rest 

28 rehearsed E rest 32 Asbeston F rest 33 be made] after become 

E rest 35 Ethiopian E rest

192 EUPHUES 

possible to gather grapes of thornes, or figges of thistelles ? or to 

cause any thinge to striue a gainst nature? 

But why go I about to prayse Nature, the whiche as yet was neuer 

any Impe so wicked & barbarous, any Turke so vile and brutish, 

any beast so dull and sencelesse, that coulde, or would, or durst 5 

disprayse or contemne ? Doth not Cicero conclude and allowe, that 

if wee followe and obey Nature, we shall neuer erre ? Doth not 

Aristotle alleadge and confirme, that Nature frameth or maketh 

nothing in any poynte rude, vayne, and vnperfect? 

Nature was had in such estimation and admiration among the 10 

Heathen people, that she was reputed for the onely Goddesse in 

Heauen: If Nature then haue largely and bountefully endewed 

mee with hir giftes, why deeme you me so vntoward and gracelesse ? 

If she haue dealte hardely with me, why extoll you so muche my 

birth ? If Nature beare no sway, why vse you this adulation ? If 15 

Nature worke the effecte, what booteth any education ? If Nature 

be of strength or force, what auaileth discipline or nurture ? If of 

none, what helpeth Nature? But lette these sayings passe, as 

knowne euidently and graunted to be true, which none can or may 

deny vnlesse he be false, or that he bee an enemye to humanitie. 20 

As touchinge my residence and abidinge heere in Naples, my 

youthly and lusty affections, my sportes and pleasures, my pastimes, 

my common dalyaunce, my delyghtes, my resorte and company, 

and companions, which dayly vse to visite mee, althoughe to you 

they breede more sorrowe and care, then solace and comforte, 25 

bicause of your crabbed age: yet to mee they bring more comforte 

and ioy, then care & griefe, more blisse then bale, more happines 

then heauines: bicause of my youthfull gentlenes. Eyther you 

would haue all men olde as you are, or els you haue quite forgotten 

y* you your selfe were young, or euer knew young dayes: eyther 30 

in your youth you were a very vicious and vngodly man, or now 

being aged very supersticious & deuoute aboue measure. 

Put you no difference betweene the younge flourishinge Baye 

tree, and the olde withered Beeche? No kinde of distinction 

betweene the waxinge and the wayninge of the Moone ? And be- 35 

tweene the risinge and the settinge of the Sunne ? Doe you measure 

the hotte assaultes of youth, by the colde skirmishes of age ? whose 

1 Garpes T Q and] or T rest 22 and lusty om. T rest 24 and 

companions om. T rest 27 then 1 ] the E 2 29 quite om. E rest 31 

vngodly] vngodlie minded E rest 36 the2 om. E rest


yeares are subiect to more infirmities then our youth, we merry, you 

melancholy, wee zealous in affection, you ielous in all your dooinges, 

you testie without cause, wee hastie for no quarrell. You carefull, 

we carelesse, wee bolde, you fearefull, we in all pointes contrary vnto 

5 you, and ye in all pointes vnlike vnto vs. 

Seeing therefore we bee repugnaunt eache to the other in nature, 

woulde you haue vs alyke in qualyties? Woulde you haue one 

potion ministred to the burning Feuer, and to the colde Palseye ? 

one playster to an olde issue and a fresh wounde ? one salue for all 

10 sores ? one sauce for all meates ? No no Eubulus, but I will yeelde 

to more, then eyther I am bounde to graunte, eyther thou able 

to proue: Suppose that which I neuer will beleeue, that Naples 

is a canckred storehouse of all strife, a common stewes for all 

strumpettes, the sinke of shame, and the very nurse of all sin : shall 

15 it therfore follow of necessitie that all yt are woed of loue, should 

be wedded to lust, will you conclude as it were ex consequenti, that 

whosoeuer aryueth heere shall be enticed to follye, and beeinge 

enticed, of force shallbe entangled ? No, no, it is y e disposition 

of the thought yt altereth y e nature of y e thing. The Sun shineth 

20 vppon the dungehill, and is not corrupted, the Diamond lyeth in 

the fire, and is not consumed, the Christall toucheth the Toade, and 

is not poysoned, the birde Trochllus lyueth by the mouth of the 

Crocodile and is not spoyled, a perfecte wit is neuer bewitched with 

leaudenesse, neyther entised with lasciuiosnesse. 

25 Is it not common that the Holme tree springeth amidst the 

Beach? That the Iuie spreadeth vppon the hard stones? That 

the softe fetherbed breketh the hard blade? If experience haue 

not taughte you this, you haue lyued long & learned lyttle, or if 

your moyst braine haue forgot it, you haue learned much and 

30 profited nothing. But it may be, that you measure my affections 

by your owne fancies, and knowing your selfe either too simple 

to rayse the siege of pollycie, or too weake to resist the assault by 

prowesse, you deeme me of as lyttle wit as your selfe, or'of lesse 

force, eyther of small capacitie, or of no courage. In my iudgement 

35 Eubulus, you shal assone catch a Hare with a Taber, as you shal 

perswade youth, with your aged & ouerworn eloquence, to such 

2 affections G rest 4 to E rest 5 ye] you E rest vnto om, 

E rest 6 in om. F 7 alyke] like F 11 eyther 2 ] or E rest 

12 will neuer E rest 22 Fiochilus A: Throchilus T by ] in E rest 

27 feathered bed EF 29 forgotten the same E rest 30 mine F rest 

32 of] by Trest 

BOND 1 O

194 

EUPHUES 

seueritie of lyfe, which as yet ther was neuer Stoycke so strict, nor 

Iesuite so supersticious, neyther Votarie so deuout, but would rather 

allow it in words the follow it in workes, rather talke of it then try it. 

Neither were you such a Saint in your youth, that abandoning all 

pleasures, all pastimes, and delyghts, you would chuse rather to 5 

sacrifice the first fruites of your lyfe to vayne holynesse, then to 

youthly affections. But as to the stomacke quatted with daynties, 

all delycates seeme quesie, and as he that surfetteth with wine vseth 

afterward to allay with water: So these olde huddles hauing ouercharged 

their gorges with fancie, accompte all honest recreation 10 

meere folly, and hauinge taken a surfet of delyght, seeme now to 

sauor it with despight. Seeing therefore it is labour lost for mee 

to perswade you, and winde vaynely wasted for you to exhort me, 

heere I founde you, and heere I leaue you, hauing neither bought 

nor solde with you, but chaunged ware for ware, if you haue taken 15 

lyttle pleasure in my reply, sure I am that by your counsaile I haue 

reaped lesse profit. They that vse to steale honny, burne hemlocke 

to smoke the Bees from their hiues, and it may bee, that to get 

some aduauntage of mee, you haue vsed these smokie argumentes, 

thincking thereby to smother mee with the conceipt of strong 20 

imagination: But as y e Camelion thoughe hee haue most guttes, 

draweth least breath, or as the Elder tree thoughe hee bee fullest 

of pith, is farthest from strength, so though your reasons seeme 

inwardly to your selfe somewhat substantial, and your perswasions 

pithie in your owne conceipte, yet beyng well wayed without, they 25 

be shadowes without substaunce, and weake without force. The 

Birde Taurus hath a great voyce, but a small body, the thunder 

a greate clappe, yet but a lyttle stone, the emptie vessell giueth 

a greater sownd, then the full barrell. I meane not to apply it, but 

looke into your selfe and you shall certeinely finde it, and thus 30 

I leaue you seekinge it, but were it not that my company stay my 

comming, I would surely helpe you to looke it, but I am called hence 

by my acquaintance. 

Euphues hauing thus ended his talke departed leauing this olde 

gentleman in a great quandarie: who perceiuing that he was more 35 

enclined to wantonnesse, then to wisedome, with a deepe sigh the 

1-2 Stoycke . .. deuout] Stoicke in preceptes so strict, neither any in lyfe so 

precise M rest 11 follly A 16 I am sure E rest 21 hath G rest 

27 Fauras A 28 yet but] but yet E 1 : but E 2 rest


teares trickling downe his cheekes, sayde: Seeing [thou wilt not buye 

counsell at the firste hande good cheape, thou shalt buye repentaunce 

at the seconde hande, at suche an vnreasonable rate, that thou wilt 

curse thy hard penyworth, and banne thy hard hearte] [Ah Euphues 

5 little dost thou know that if thy wealth wast, thy wit will giue but 

small warmth, & if thy wit encline to wilfulnes, that thy wealth will 

doe thee no great good. If the one had bene employed to thrift, 

the other to learning, it had bene harde to coniecture, whether thou 

shouldest haue ben more fortunate by riches, or happie by wisdome, 

10 whether more esteemed in y e common weale for welth to maintaine 

warre, or for counsell to conclude peace. But alas why doe I pitie 

that in thee which thou seemest to praise in thy self.] And immediately 

he wente to his owne house, heauily bewayling the young 

mans vnhappinesse. 

15 Heere ye may beholde gentlemen, how lewdly wit standeth in his 

owne lyght, howe he deemeth no pennye good siluer but his owne, 

preferring the blossome before the fruite, the budde before the 

flower, the greene blade before the ripe eare of corne,, his owne 

witte before all mens wisedomes. Neyther is that geason, seeing for 

20 the most parte it is proper to all those of sharpe capacitie to esteeme 

of themselues, as most proper: if one bee harde in conceiuing, they 

pronounce him a dowlte, if giuen to study, they proclayme him 

a duns, if merrye a iester, if sadde a Sainct, if full of wordes, a sotte, 

if without speach, a Cypher, if one argue with them boldly, then 

25 is he impudent, if coldely an innocent, if these be reasoning of 

diuinitie, they cry, Quae supra nos nihil ad nos, if of humanitie, 

Sententias loquitur carnifex, Heereoff commeth suche greate familyaritie 

betweene the rypest wittes, when they shall see the dysposition 

the one of the other, the Sytnpathia of affections and as it were 

3° but a payre of sheeres to goe betweene theire natures, one flattereth 

an other in hys owne folly, and layeth cushions vnder the elbowe 

of his fellowe, when he seeth him take a nappe with fancie, and as 

theire witte wresteth them to vice, so it forgeth them some feate 

excuse to cloake theire vanitie. 

25 Too much studie doth intoxicate their braynes, for (saye they) 

althoughe yron the more it is vsed the brighter it is, yet siluer with 

3 an om. E rest 4 hearte A-E l : bappe E 2 rest 4-12 Ah Euphues . .. 

in thy self. (8 lines) added Trest 7 thee small E rest 12-3 And ... he] 

And so saying, he immediately Trest 15 you G rest 19 wisedome E rest 

reason E 2 rest, exc. 1617 24 them] him E2 rest 26 they] the T 

29 sympathie E rest 31 in] by G rest 

O 2

196 EUPHUES 

much wearing doth wast to nothing, though the Cammocke the 

more it is bowed the better it serueth, yet the bow the more it is 

bent & occupied, the weaker it waxeth, though the Camomill, the 

more it is trodden and pressed downe, the more it spreadeth, yet 

the violet the oftner it is handled and touched, the sooner it withereth 5 

and decayeth. Besides thys, a fine wytte, a sharpe sence, a quicke 

vnderstanding, is able to atteine to more in a moment or a very 

little space, then a dull and blockish heade in a month, the sithe 

cutteth farre better and smoother then the sawe, the waxe yeeldeth 

better and sooner to the seale, then the Steele to the stampe or 10 

hammer, the smooth & playne Beeche is easier to be carued and 

occupyed then the knottie Boxe. For neyther is ther any thing, 

but yt hath his contraries: Such is the Nature of these nouises 

that thincke to haue learning without labour, and treasure without 

trauayle, eyther not vnderstanding or els not remembring, that the 15 

finest edge is made with the blunt whetstone, and the fairest Iewell 

fashioned with the harde hammer. I go not about (gentlemen) to 

inueigh against wit, for then I wer witlesse, but frankely to confesse 

mine owne lyttle wit, I haue euer thought so supersticiously of wit, 

that I feare I haue committed Idolatry agaynst wisedome, and 20 

if Nature had dealte so beneficially with mee to haue giuen me 

any wit, I should haue bene readyer in the defence of it to haue 

made an Apologie, then any way to tourne to Apostacie: But this 

I note, that for the most part they stande so on their pantuffles, 

that they be secure of perills, obstinate in their owne opinions, 25 

impatient of labour, apte to conceiue wrong, credulous to beleeue the 

worst, ready to shake off their olde acquaintaunce without cause, 

and to condempne them without colour : All which humors are by 

somuch the more easier to bee purged, by ho we much the lesse they 

haue festred the sinnewes : But retourne we agayne to Euphues. 30 

Euphues having soiourned by the space of two moneths in Naples, 

whether he were moued by the courtesie of a young gentleman 

named Philautus, or inforced by destenie: whether his pregnant 

wit, or his pleasaunt conceits wrought the greater liking in the minde 

of Euphues I know not for certeyntie: But Euphues shewed such 35 

entyre loue towards him, that he seemed to make small accompt of 

2 serueth] is E rest 5 is] his A 7 a 2 om. F rest 10-1 or hammer 

A only 11-2 and occupyed A only 13 y t ]that T rest contrarieties 

E l rest those G rest 19 my CG 25 of] in E rest 30 

tourne C rest 33 Philatus M 34 his] the EF in] of C-F 35 

Luphues 1 ] Eubulus EF


any others, determining to enter into such an inuiolable league of 

friendship with him, as neyther time by peecemeale should empaire, 

neither fancie vtterly dissolue, nor any suspition infringe. I haue 

red (saith he) and well I beleeue it, that[a friend is in prosperitie 

5 a pleasure, a solace in aduersitie, in griefe a comfort, in ioy a merrye 

companion, at all times an other I, in all places y e expresse Image 

of mine owne person:] insomuch that I cannot tell, whether the 

immortall Gods haue bestowed any gift vpon mortall men, either 

more noble, or more necessary, then friendship. Is ther any thing 

10 in the world to be reputed (I will not say compared) to friendship ? 

Can any treasure in this transitorie pilgrimage, be of more valewe 

then a friend ? in whose bosome thou maist sleepe secure without 

feare, whom thou maist make partner of all thy secrets without suspition 

of fraude, and pertaker of all thy misfortune without mistrust 

15 of fleeting, who will accompt thy bale his bane, thy mishap his 

misery, the pricking of thy finger, the percing of his heart. But 

whether am I carried ? Haue I not also learned that one shoulde 

eate a bushell of salt with him, whom he meaneth to make his 

friend? that tryall maketh trust? that there is falshood in fellow- 

20 ship ? and what then ? Doth not the sympathy of manners, make 

the coniunction of mindes ? Is it not a by woord, like will to like ? 

Not so common as commendable it is, to see young gentlemen 

choose the such friends with whom they may seeme beeing absent 

to be present, being a sunder to be conuersant, beeing dead to be 

25 aliue. I will therefore haue fhilautus for my pheere, and by so 

much the more I make my selfe sure to haue Fhilautus, by how 

much the more I view in him the liuely Image of Euphues. 

Although there bee none so ignoraunt that doth not know, 

neither any so impudent that will not confesse, friendship to bee 

3° the iewell of humaine ioye: yet whosoeuer shall see this amitie 

grounded vpon a little affection, will soone coniecture that it shall 

be dissolued vpon a light occasion: as in the sequele of Euphues 

& Fhilautus you shall see, whose hot loue waxed soone colde.]( For 

as y e best wine doth make y e sharpest vinaiger, so y e deepest loue 

35 tourneth to the deadliest hate. \ Who deserued the most blame in 

mine opinion, it is doubtful, & so difficult, that I dare not presume to 

giue verdit. For loue being y e cause for which so many mischiefes 

2 impart C-E 3 desolue M 9 noble] able GEE 17 whither 1613 

19 20 fellowship] friendship E rest 25 for] to be G rest 31 shall] will 

G rest 33 see] soon see G: soone perceme E rest quicklie becnme 

colde E rest 36 it om, G rest so doubtfull, and difficult 1613 rest

198 EUPHUES 

haue ben attempted, I am not yet perswaded, whether of the was 

most to be blamed, but certeinly neither of them was blamelesse. 

I appeale to your iudgement gentlemen, not that I thincke any of 

you of y e lyke disposition able to decide the question, but beeing 

of deeper discretion then I am, are more fit to debate the quarrell. 5 

Though y e discourse of their friendship and falling out be somewhat 

long, yet being somewhat straunge, I hope the delightfulnes of the 

one, will attenuate the tediousnesse of the other. 

Euphues had continuall accesse to the place of Philautus and no 

little familiaritie with him, and finding him at conuenient leasure, in 10 

these short termes vnfolded his minde vnto him. 

Gentleman and friend, the triall I haue had of thy manners, 

cutteth off diuers termes which to an other I would haue vsed in the 

like matter. And sithens a long discourse argueth folly, and delicate 

words incurre the suspition of flattery, I am determined to vse 15 

neither of them, knowing either of them to breede offence. Waying 

with my selfe the force of friendship by the effects, I studied euer 

since my first comming to Naples to enter league with such a one, as 

might direct my steps being a straunger, & resemble my manners 

being a scholler, the which two qualities as I finde in you able to 20 

satisfie my desire, so I hope I shall finde a hearte in you willing to 

accomplish my request. Which if I may obtein, assure your selfe 

yt Damon to his Pythias, Pylades to his Orestes, Titus to his 

Gysippus, Theseus to his Pyrothus, Scipio to his Lcelius, was neuer 

foud more faithfull then Euphues will be to his Philautus. 25 

Philautus by how much the lesse hee looked for thys discourse, by 

so much the more he liked it, for he saw all qualities both of body 

& minde in Euphues, vnto whom he replyed as followeth. 

Friend Euphues (for so your talke warranteth me to terme you) 

I dare neither vse a long processe, neither louing speach, least 30 

vnwittingly I should cause you to couince me of those thinges, 

which you haue alredy condemned. And verily I am bolde to presume 

vpon your curtesie, since you your self haue vsed so little 

curiositie, perswading my selfe, that my short answere wil worke as 

great an effect in you, as your few words did in me. And seeing we 35 

resemble (as you say) each other in qualities, it cannot be that the 

one should differ from y e other in curtesie, seeing the sincere arTec- 

5 I am] myselfe E rest 11 termes] tearmes following E rest to 

C rest 13-4 in like manner E rest 14 sith E rest 24 Pyrothous EF: 

Pyrithous 1613 rest 25 his om. Trest 30 a before louing Trest 33 

sith your owne selfe E rest 36 the om. G and 1617-1636


tion of the minde cannot be expressed by the mouth, & that no arte 

can vnfdlde y e entire loue of the heart, I am earnestly to beseech 

you not to measure the firmenesse of my faith, by the fewnes of my 

wordes, but rather thincke that the ouerflowing waues of good will 

5 leaue no passage for many woords. Tryall shall proue trust, heere 

is my hand, my heart, my lands and my lyfe at thy comaundement f 

Thou maist well perceiue that I did beleeue thee, that so soone 

I dyd loue thee, and I hope thou wilt the rather loue me, in that 

I did beleeue thee. [Either Euphues and Philautus stoode in neede 

10 of frindshippe, or were ordeined to be friendes: vpon so short warning, 

to make so soone a conclusion might seeme in mine opinion if 

it continued myraculous, if shaken off, ridiculous. 

But] After many embracings & protestations one to an other, 

they walked to dinner, where they wanted neither meate, neither 

15 Musicke, neither any other pastime, & hauing banqueted, to digest 

their sweet confections, they daunced all yt afternoone, they vsed 

not onely one boord, but one bedde, one booke (if so be it they 

thought not one to many.) Their friendship augmented euery day, 

insomuch y t the one could not refraine y e company of y e other one 

20 minute, all things went in comon betweene them, which all men 

accompted comendable. Philautus being a towne borne childe, 

both for his owne continuance, & the great countenaunce whiche his 

Father had whyle he liued, crepte into credite with Don Ferardo one 

of the chiefe gouernours of the citie, who although he had a courtly 

25 crewe of gentlewomen soiourning in his pallace, yet his daughter 

heire to his whole reuenews, stained the beautie of them all, whose 

modest bashfulnesse caused the other to looke wanne for enuie, 

whose lillye cheekes dyed with a Uermillion redde made the rest to 

blushe at hir beautie. For as the finest Rubie stayneth the coulour 

30 of the rest that bee in place, or as the Sunne dimmeth the Moone, 

that she cannot bee discerned, so this gallant gyrle more faire then 

fortunate, and yet more fortunate then faithfull, eclipsed the beautie 

of them all, and chaunged their coulours. Unto hir had Philautus 

accesse, who wanne hir by right of loue, and shoulde haue worne 

35 hir by right of lawe, had not Euphues by straunge destenie broken 

the bondes of marriage, and forbidden the banes of Matrimonie. 

It happened y t Don Ferardo had occasion to go to Venice about 

9-13 Either ... ridiculous. But (4 lines) added T rest 9 Philatus M 

II soone] fine C rest 22 continuance] countenaunce T rest 28-9 to 

blushe . .. beautie] to blush for shame T rest, C rest omitting to 30 Sunne] 

brightnesse of the Sunne E rest 36 bondes] bands £ rest

200 EUPHUES 

certein his own affaires, leauing his daughter the onely steward of 

his houshoulde, who spared not to feast Philautus hir friend, with al 

kindes of delights & delicates, reseruing onely hir honestie as the 

chiefe stay of hir honour. Hir father being gon she sent for hir 

friend to supper, who came not as he was accustomed solitarily 5 

alone, but accompanied with his friende Euphues. The Gentlewoman 

whether it were for nycenesse or for niggardnesse of curtesie, gaue 

hym suche a colde welcome that he repented that he was come. 

Euphues thoughe hee knewe himselfe worthy euery way to haue 

a good countenaunce, yet coulde hee not perceiue hir willinge any way 10 

to lende hym a friendly looke. [Yet least he should seeme to want 

gestures, or to be dashed out of conceipt with hir coy countenaunce, 

he addressed him to a Gentlewoman called Liuia, vnto whome he 

vttered this speach. Faire Ladye, if it be the guise of Italy to 

welcome straungers with strangnes, I must needes say the custome 15 

is strange and the countrey barbarous, if the manner of Ladies 

to salute Gentlemen with coynesse, then I am enforced to think the 

women without courtesie to vse such welcome, and the men past 

shame that will come. But heereafter I will either bring a stoole 

on mine arme for an vnbidden guest, or a visard on my face, for 20 

a shamelesse gossippe. Liuia replyed. 

Sir, our country is ciuile, & our gentlewome are curteous, but in 

Naples it is compted a iest, at euery word to say, In faith you are 

welcome. As she was yet talking, supper was set on the bord, then 

Philautus spake thus vnto Lucilla. Yet] Gentlewoman I was the 25 

bolder to bringe my shadowe with mee, (meaning Euphues) knowing 

that he should be the better welcome for my sake, vnto whome 

the gentilwoman replyed : Syr as I neuer when I sawe you thought 

that you came without your shadow, so now I cannot a lyttle meruaile 

to see you so ouershot in bringing a new shadow wt you. 30 

Euphues though he perceiued hir coy nippe, seemed not to care for 

it, but taking hir by y e hand sayd. 

Fayre Lady seing the shade doth often shilde your beautie from 

the parching Sunne, I hope you will the better esteeme of the 

shadowe, and by so much the lesse it ought to be offenciue, 35 

1 his 1 ] of his G rest 2 her friend Philautus E rest 7 or for] for om. 

E2 rest 11-25 Yet least... Lucilla. Yet (14 lines) added T rest, omitting 

At the last supper beeing readye to come in, Philautus sayde vnto hir: found in A 

14 these speeches E rest 16 manners E rest 17 be to salute G rest 

18 without] voyde of C rest 21 Where-vpon, Liuia replied in this manner 

E rest 25 Gentlewomen EF1636 33 so before often G rest


by how much the lesse it is able to offende you, and by so much 

the more you ought to lyke it, by how much the more you vse to 

lye in it. 

Well gentleman aunswered Lucilla in arguing of the shadowe, we 

5 forgoe the substance : pleaseth it you therefore to sit downe to 

supper. And so they all sate downe, but Euphues fed of one dish 

which euer stoode before him, the beautie of Lucilla. 

Heere Euphues at the firste sight was so kyndled with desyre, 

that almost he was lyke to burn to coales. Supper being ended, the 

1o order was in Naples that the gentlewomen would desire to heare 

some discourse, either concerning loue or learning : And although 

Philautus was requested, yet he posted it ouer to Euphues, whome 

he knew most fit for that purpose : Euphues being thus tyed to the 

stake by their importunate intreatie, began as followeth. 

15 He that worst may is alwaye enforced to holde the candell, the 

weakest must still to the wall, where none will, the Diuell himselfe 

must beare the crosse : But were it not gentlewomen that your lyste 

standes for lawe, I would borrow so much leaue as to resigne myne 

office to one of you, whose experience in loue hath made you 

20 learned, and whose learning hath made you so louely: for me to 

entreate of the one being a nouise, or to discourse of the other being 

a trewant, I may wel make you weary but neuer the wyser, and giue 

you occasion rather to laugh at my rashnesse, then to lyke my 

reasons. Yet I care the lesse to excuse my boldnesse to you, who 

25 were the cause of my blyndenesse. And since I am at myne owne 

choyce eyther to talke of loue or of learning, I had rather for this 

tyme be deemed an vnthrift in reiecting profit, then a Stoicke in 

renouncing pleasure. 

It hath bene a question often disputed, but neuer determined, 

30 whether the qualities of the mynde, or the composition of the man, 

cause women most to lyke, or whether beautie or witte moue men 

most to loue. Certes by how much the more the mynde is to be 

preferred before the body, by so much the more the graces of the 

one are to be preferred before the gifts of the other, which if it be 

35 so, that the contemplation of the inwarde qualitie ought to be respected 

more, then the view of the outward beautie, then doubtlesse 

women eyther doe or should loue those best whose vertue is best, 

7 which was ever before G: which was before E rest 15 alwaies E rest 

17-8 lust standes for law T-G: lusts standes for law E l : lusts stands for a law &F\ 

lusts stand for a lawe 1613 rest 18 my G rest 23 lyke] like of G rest 

25 sith E rest 33 the more om. E rest 36 inward EF

202 EUPHUES 

not measuring the deformed man with the reformed mynde. The 

foule Toade hathe a fayre stoane in his head, the fine goulde is 

founde in the filthy earth, the sweete kernell lyeth in the hard 

shell. Uertue is harbored in the heart of him that most men 

esteeme misshapen. Contrary wise if we respect more the outward 5 

shape, then the inwarde habit, good God into how many mischiefes 

doe we fall ? into what blyndenesse are we ledde ? Doe we not commonly 

see that in paynted pottes is hidden the deadlyest poyson ? 

that in the greenest grasse is the greatest Serpent? in the cleerest 

water the vglyest Toade ? Doth not experience teach vs that in the 10 

most curious Sepulchre are enclosed rotten bones ? That the Cypresse 

tree beareth a fayre leafe but no fruite ? That the Estridge 

carryeth fayre fethers, but rancke flesh ? How franticke are those 

louers which are carryed away with the gaye glistering of the fine 

face? the beautie whereof is parched with the Sommers blase, & 15 

chipped with the winters blast, which is of so short continuance that 

it fadeth before one perceiue it florishe, of so small profit that it 

poysoneth those that possesse it, of so little value with the wyse, that 

they accompt it a delicate bayte with a deadly hooke, a sweete 

Panther with a deuouring paunch, a sower poyson in a siluer potte. 20 

Here I colde enter into discourse of such fyne dames as being in 

loue with theyr owne lookes, make such course accompt of theyr 

passionate louers: for comonly if they be adorned with beautie, 

they be so straight laced, and made so high in the insteppe, that 

they disdaine them most that most desyre them. It is a worlde to 25 

see the doating of theyr louers, and theyr dealing with them, the 

reuealing of whose subtil traines would cause me to shead teares, & 

you gentlewomen to shut your modest eares. Pardon me gentlewomen 

if I vnfold euery wyle, & shew euery wrinckle of womens 

disposition. Two thinges do they cause their seruants to vow vnto 30 

them, secrecie," & soueraigntie, y e one to conceale their entising 

sleights, by the other to assure themselues of their onely seruice. 

Again, but ho there, if I shold haue waded any further, & sownded 

the depth of their deceipt, I should either haue procured your displeasure, 

or incurred y e suspition of frawd, eyther armed you to 35 

practise the like subteltie, or accused my self of penury. But I mean 

not to orTend your chast mynds, w t the rehersal of their vnchast 

5 mishape EF: mishap't 1613 rest 15 Sunnes E rest 16 chapped 

E rest is] if C 22 course so all 24 so 1 om. T rest 30 dispositions 

E2 rest do om. 1613 rest they om. E2F 32 slights G-F 37 minde G


manners, whose eares I perceiue to glowe, and heartes to be greeued 

at that which I haue already vttered, not that amongest you there be 

any such, but that in your sexe ther should be any such. Let not 

gentlewomg therfore make to much of their paynted sheathe, lette 

5 them not be so curyous in theyr owne conceite, or so currishe to 

theyr loyall louers. When the blacke crowes foote shall appeare in 

theyr eye, or the blacke Oxe treade on their foote, when their 

beautie shall be lyke the blasted Rose, theyr wealth wasted, their 

bodies worne, theyr faces wrinckled, their fyngers crooked, who will 

10 lyke of them in their age, who loued none in their youth ? flf you 

will be cherished when you be olde, be curteous while you be young, 

if you looke for comfort in your hoary haires, be not coye when you 

haue your golden lockes, if you would be embraced in the wayning 

of your brauery, be not squeymish in the waxing of your beautie, if 

15 you desyre to be kept lyke the Roses when they haue loste theyr 

coulour, smell sweete as the Rose doth in the bud, if you would 

be tasted for olde wyne, be in the mouth a pleasant Grape, so shall 

you be cherished for your curtesie, comforted for your honestie, 

embraced for your amitie, so shall you be preserued with the sweete 

20 Rose, and droncke with the pleasant wyne. Thus farre I am bolde 

gentlewomen, to counsell those that be coye that they weaue not 

the webbe of theyr owne woe, nor spin the threed of their owne 

thraldome by their owne ouerthwartnesse. And seing we are euen in 

the bowells of loue, it shall not be amisse to examine whether man 

25 or woman be sonest allured, whether be most constant the male 

or the female. And in this poynt I meane not to be myne owne 

earner, least I should seeme eyther to picke a thanke with men, or 

a quarrel with women. If therfore it might stande with your pleasure 

(Mistres Lucilla) to giue your censure I would take the contrary, 

30 for sure I am though your iudgement be sounde, yet affection will 

shadow it. 

Lucilla seing his pretence thought to take aduauntage of his large 

profer, vnto whome she sayde. Gentleman in myne opinion Women 

are to be wonne with euery wynde, in whose sex ther is neither force 

35 to withstande the assaults of loue, neither constancie to remaine 

faythfull. And bicause your discourse hathe hetherto bredde 

delight, I am loth to hinder you in the sequele of your deuises. 

5 conceits E rest 13 your om. E2 rest 15 Rose when it hath lost 

his E rest 18 your 2 ] you T 19 you] ye G rest 20 dronke T-G: 

drunken E rest 32 this EF pretence] presents 33 my TM 

Women AE rest: Woemom T: women MCG

204 

EUPHUES 

Euphnes perceiuing himselfe to be taken napping, answered as 

followeth. 

U Mistres Lucilla, if you speake as you thincke, these gentlewomen 

present haue lyttle cause to thanke you, if you cause me to comend 

women, my tale wil be accopted a meere trifle, & your words y e 5 

plain truth: Yet knowing promise to be debt, I wyll paye it with 

performance. And I would y e gentlemen here present wer as ready 

to credit my proofe, as y e gentlewomen are willing to heare their 

own prayses, or I as able to ouercome, as Mistres Lucilla would be 

cotent to be ouerthrown. How so euer the matter shall fall out, 1o 

I am of the surer syde, for if my reasons be weake, then is our sexe 

stronge, if forcyble, then your iudgement feeble, if I fynde truth on 

my syde, I hope I shall for my wages win the good will of women, if 

I want proofe, then gentlewomen of necessitie you must yelde to men. 

But to the matter. 15 

Touching the yelding to loue, albeit theyr hartes seeme tender, 

yet they harden them lyke the stone of Sialia, the which the more 

it is beaten, the harder it is: for being framed as it were of the 

perfection of men, they be free from all such cogitations as may any 

way prouoke them to vncleanenesse, insomuch as they abhorre the 20 

light loue of youth which is grounded vpon lust, & dissolued vpon 

euery light occasion. When they see the folly of men turne to fury, 

their delight to doting, theyr affection to frensie, when they see them 

as it were pyne in pleasure, and to waxe pale through theyr owne 

peeuishnesse, their sutes, their seruice, theyr letters, theyr labors, their 25 

loues, theyr lyues, seeme to them so odious, that they harden theyr 

hartes against such concupiscence, to the ende they might couert them 

from rashnesse to reason, from such lewde disposition, to honest 

discretion: hereof! it commeth that men accuse women of crueltie, 

bicause they themselues want ciuilitie, they accompt them full of 30 

wyles in not yelding to their wickednesse, faythlesse for resisting 

their fylthinesse. But I had almost forgot my selfe, you shall pardon 

mee Mistresse Lucilla for this time, if thus abruptly, I finish my 

discourse: it is neyther for want of good wil, or lacke of proofe, but 

that I feele in my selfe such alteration, that I can scarcely vtter one 35 

word. Ah Eupheus, Euphues. 

The gentlewomen were strooke into such a quandarie with this 

12 your] is your C rest 14 men] mee F 27 end that they C rest 31 

for] in E2 rest 33 thus G rest: this A-C 35 an before alteration 

G rest scarce G rest 36 Eupheus] Euphues T rest

THE ANATOMY' OF WYT 205 

sodayne chaunge, that they all chaunged coulour. But Euphues 

taking Philautus by the hande and giuing the gentlewomen thanckes 

for their patience and his repast, badde them all fare-well, and went 

immediatly to his chamber. But Lucilla who now began to frie in 

5 the flames of loue, all the company beeing departed to their lodgings, 

entred into these termes and contrarieties. 

Ah wretched wench Lucilla how art thou perplexed? what 

a doubtfull fight dost thou feelje betwixt faith and fancie ? hope & 

feare ? conscience and concupiscence ? O my Euphues, lyttle dost 

10 thou know the sodayne sorrow that I sustayne for thy sweete sake. 

Whose witte hath bewitched me, whose rare qualyties haue depriued 

me of mine olde qualytie, whose courteous behauiour without 

curiositie, whose comely feature without fault, whose fyled speach 

without fraude, hath wrapped me in this misfortune. And canst 

15 thou Lucilla be so light of loue in forsaking Philautus to flye to 

Euphues? canst thou prefer a straunger before thy countryman? 

A starter before thy companion? Why Euphues doth perhappes 

desyre my loue, but Philautus hath deserued it. Why Euphues 

feature is worthy as good as I, But Philautus his fayth is worthy 

20 a better. I but the latter loue is moste feruent. I but the firste 

ought to be most faythfull. I but Euphues hath greater perfection. 

I but Philautus hath deeper affection. 

Ah fonde wench, doste thou thincke Euphues will deeme thee 

constant to him, when thou hast bene vnconstant to his friende? 

25 Weenest thou that he will haue no mistrust of thy faithfulnesse, when 

he hath had tryall of thy fycklenesse ? Will he haue no doubt of 

thyne honour, when thou thy selfe callest thyne honestie in question? 

Yes, yes, Lucilla, well dothe he know that the glasse once crased 

will with the leaste clappe be cracked, that the cloath which staineth 

30 with Mylke, will soone loose his coulour with vineger, that the 

Eagles wynge will wast the fether as well of the Phoenix, as of the 

Pheasant, that she that hath bene faythlesse to one, will neuer be 

faythfull to any. But can Euphues conuince me of fleetinge, seeing 

for his sake I breake my fidelitie ? Can he condemne me of dis- 

35 loyaltie, when he is the onely cause of my dislyking ? Maye he 

iustly condemne me of trecherye, who hath this testimony as tryall 

4 their EF 8 betweene Crest II haue] hath C-F 12 whose] 

most TM 13 comely] common F 16 thy] the T: they C 17 perhappes 

doeth G rest 18 thy E rest 20 more E rest 26 had om. 

E l rest 27 into E2 rest 28 crazed C rest: of. p 189,1. 22 30 

soonest E? rest 34 brake C rest 36 this] his C rest

206 EUPHUES 

of my good will ? Doth not he remember that the broken boane 

once sette together, is stronger then euer it was ? That the greatest 

blotte is taken off with the Pommice ? That though the Spyder 

poysoa the Flye, she cannot infect the Bee ? That although I haue 

bene light to Philautus, yet I may be louely to Euphues ? It is not 5 

my desire, but his desertes that moueth my mynde to this choyse, 

neyther the want of the lyke good will in Philautus, but the lacke of 

the lyke good qualities that remoueth my fancie from the one to the 

other. 

For as the Bee that gathereth Honny out of the weede, when she 10 

espyeth the faire flower flyeth to the sweetest: or as the kynde 

spanyell though he hunt after Byrdes, yet forsakes them to retryue 

the Partridge: or as we commonly feede on beefe hungerly at the 

first, yet seing the Quayle more dayntie, chaunge our dyet: So 

I, although I loued Philautus for his good properties, yet seing 15 

Euphues to excell him, I ought by Nature to lyke him better: By 

so muche the more therefore my change is to be excused, by how 

much the more my choyce is excellent: and by so much the lesse 

I am to be condemned, by how much the more Euphues is to be 

commended. Is not the Dyamonde of more valewe then the Rubie, 20 

bicause he is of more vertue ? Is not the Emeraulde preferred before 

the Saphyre for his wonderfull propertie? Is not Euphues more 

prayse worthy then Philautus being more wittie ? But fye Lucilla, 

why doste thou flatter thy selfe in thyne owne follye? canst thou 

fayne Euphues thy friend, whome by thyne owne wordes thou hast 25 

made thy foe ? Dyddest not thou accuse women of inconstancie ? 

dyddest not thou accompt them easy to be wonne? dyddest not 

thou condemne them of weakenesse ? what sounder argument can 

he haue against thee, then thine owne answer? what better proofe, 

then thine owne speach ? what greater tryall, then thyne owne 30 

talke ? If thou haste belyed women, he will iudge thee vnkynde, if 

thou haue reuealed the troth, he must needes thincke thee vnconstant, 

if he perceiue thee to be wonne with a Nut, he will imagine that 

thou wilt be lost with an Apple: If he fynde thee wanton before 

thou be woed, he wil gesse thou wilt be wauering when thou art 35 

wedded. 

But suppose that Euphues loue thee, that Philautus leaue thee, will 

thy father thinckest thou giue thee libertie to lyue after thyne owne 

5 yet A only 6 this] his G rest 15 loue E rest 24 thy selfe om. F 

27 thou not C: not om. G them] thy selfe G rest


lust? Will he esteeme him worthy to enherite his possessions, 

whom he accompteth vnworthy to enioye thy person? Is it lyke 

that he wyll match thee in marryage wt a stranger, with a Grecian, 

with a meane man ? I but what knoweth my father whether he be 

5 wealthy, whether his reuenewes be able to counteruaile my fathers 

lands, whether his birth be noble, yea, or no? can any one make 

doubte of his gentle bloude, that seeth his gentle condicions ? Can 

his honoure be called into question, whose honestie is so greate ? is 

he to be thought thriftelesse, who in all qualyties of y e minde is peereiolesse? 

No, no, y e tree is knowen by his fruite, the golde by his 

touch, the sonne by the sire. And as the softe waxe receiueth what 

soeuer print be in the seale, and sheweth no other impression, so 

the tender babe being sealed with his fathers giftes representeth his 

Image most lyuely. But were I once certaine of Euphues good will, 

15 I woulde not so supersticiously accompt of my fathers ill will. 

[Time hath weaned me from my mothers teat, and age ridde me from 

my fathers correction, when children are in their swathe cloutes, then 

are they subiect to the whip, and ought to be carefull of the rigour 

of their parents. As for me seeing I am not fedde with their pap, 

20 I am not to be ledde by their perswasions. Let my father vse what 

speaches he lyst, I will follow mine owne lust. Lust Ludlla, what 

sayst thou ? No, no, mine owne loue I should haue sayd, for I am 

as farre from lust, as I am from reason, and as neere to loue as 

I am to folly. Then sticke to thy determination, & shew thy selfe, 

25 what loue can doe, what loue dares doe, what loue hath done.] 

Albeit I can no way quench the coales of desire with forgetfulnesse, 

yet will I rake them vp in the ashes of modestie, seeing I dare not 

discouer my loue for maidely shamefastnes, I wil dissemble it til 

time I haue opportunitie. And I hope so to behaue my selfe as 

30 Euphues shall thinke me his owne, and Philautus perswade himselfe 

I am none but his. But I would to God Euphues woulde repaire 

hether, that the sight of him might mittigate some part of my martirdome. 

She hauing thus discoursed with hir selfe hir owne miseryes, cast 

35 hir selfe on the bedde: and there lette hir lye, and retourne wee to 

Euphues, who was so caught in the ginne of folly, that he neyther 

coulde comforte himselfe nor durst aske counsel of his friend, suspect- 

8 in G rest 10 his 2 ] the E rest 11 the sire A-GF 1613, 1617 : his 

Sire E: the fire 1623, 1631, 1636 14 his before good C rest 16-25 

Time . .. done. (10 lines) added T rest 28 discouer] make knowne E rest

208 EUPHUES 

ing that which in deede was true, that Philutus was corriuall with 

him, and cookemate with Lucilla. Amiddest therefore these his 

extremityes betweene hope and feare, hee vttered these or the lyke 

speaches. 

What is hee Euphues that knowing thy witte, and seeing thy 5 

folly: but will rather punish thy lewdenesse, then pittie thy heauinesse? 

Was there euer any so fickle so soone to be allured? any 

euer so faithlesse to deceiue his friend ? euer any so foolish to bathe 

himselfe in his owne misfortune? To true it is that as the Sea 

Crabbe swimmeth alwayes agaynst the streame, so wit alwayes 10 

striueth agaynst wisedome: And as the Bee is oftentimes hurte 

with hir owne honny, so is wit not seldome plagued with his owne 

conceipte. 

O ye gods haue ye ordayned for euerye maladye a medicine, for 

euery sore a salue, for euery payne a plaister, leuing only loue remedi- 15 

lesse ? Did ye deeme no man so madde to be entangled with desire, 

or thoughteyee them worthye to be tormented that were so misledde? 

haue ye dealte more fauourable with brute beasts then with reasonable 

creatures. 

The filthy Sow when she is sicke, eateth the Sea Crabbe and is 20 

immediately recured: the Torteyse hauing tasted the Uiper, sucketh 

Origanum and is quickly reuiued : the Beare readye to pine, lycketh 

vpp the Ants and is recouered: the Dogge hauing surfetted, to 

procure his vomitte eateth grasse, and flndeth remedy: the Harte 

beeing pearced with the darte, runneth out of hande to the hearbe 25 

DictanuM) and is healed. And can men by no hearb, by no art, by 

no way procure a remedye for the impatient disease of loue ? Ah 

well I perceiue that loue is not vnlyke the Figge tree, whose fruite is 

sweete, whose roote is more bitter then the claw of a Bitter, or lyke 

the Apple in Persia, whose blossome sauoreth lyke Honny, whose 30 

budde is more sower then gall. 

But O impietie. 0 broade blasphemy agaynst the heauens. Wilt 

thou be so impudent Euphues, to accuse the gods of iniquitie ? No 

fonde foole, no. Neyther is it forbidden vs by the gods to loue, by 

whose diuine prouidence we are permitted to lyue, neyther doe wee 35 

want remedyes to recure our maladyes, but reason to vse the meanes. 

But why goe I about to hinder the course of loue, with the discourse 

2 cock-mate E2 rest 7-8 any euer] euer any G rest 12 hir] his 

C rest his om. C 18 fauourably T rest 29 whose] but the 

E rest Bitter so all 34 it] is E l vs om. E rest


of law? hast thou not redde Eupheus, that he that loppeth the Uine 

causeth it to spreade fairer? that hee that stoppeth the streame 

forceth it to swell higher ? that he that casteth water on the fire in 

the Smithes forge, maketh it to flame fiercer? Euen so he that 

5 seeketh by counsayle to moderate his ouerlashinge affections, 

encreaseth his owne misfortune. Ah my Lucilla, wold thou wert 

either lesse faire or I more fortunate, eyther I wiser or thou milder, 

either woulde I were out of this madde moode, eyther I would we 

were both of one minde. But how should she be perswaded of my 

10 loyaltie, that yet had neuer one simple proofe of my loue? will shee 

not rather imagine me to be intangled with hir beautie,then with hir 

vertue. That my fancie being so lewdly chayned at y e first, will be 

as lyghtly changed at the last, yt ther is nothing which is permangt 

yt is violent ? yes, yes, she must needs coniecture so, although it be 

15 nothing so, for by how much y e more my affection cometh on y e 

suddaine, by so much the lesse will she thinke it certeyne. The 

ratling thunderbolte hath but his clappe, the lyghteninge but his 

flash, and as they both come in a moment, so doe they both ende in 

a minute. 

20 I but Euphues, hath shee not hearde also that the drye touchewoode 

is kindled with lyme, that the greatest mushrompe groweth in 

one night? y t the fire quickly burneth the flaxe? that loue easilye 

entreth into the sharpe witte without resistaunce, & is harboured there 

without repentaunce ? 

25 If therefore the Gods haue endewed hir with as much bountie as 

beautie. If she haue no lesse wit then she hath comelynesse, certes 

she will neyther conceiue sinisterly of my sodayne sute, neyther be 

coye to receiue me into hir seruice, neyther suspecte mee of lyghtnesse, 

in yeelding so lyghtly, neyther reiect me disdaynefully, for 

30 louing so hastely. Shall I not then hazarde my lyfe to obtaine my 

loue? and deceiue Philautus to receiue Lucilla? Yes Euphues, 

where loue beareth sway, friendshippe can haue no shew: As 

Philautus brought me for his shadowe the last supper, so will I vse 

him for my shadow til I haue gayned his Saint. And canst thou 

35 wretch be false to him that is faithfull to thee? Shall hys curtesie 

1 Euphues T rest 2 faire M 3 forceth] causeth C rest in the fire 

at G rest 6 wer MCG 8 either I would I T rest eyther] or els 

E rest 12-3 lewdly chayned . . . lyghtly changed ACG 1613 rest-, lewdly 

chaunged . .. lyghtly chaunged TM: lewdlie chained . . . lightly chained EF 

13 as om. C rest 13-4 last. . . violent] last: that nothing violent, can bee 

permanent T rest 20 hearde] hard M 23 into . . . witte] into the shape 

E rest 26 haue] hath E rest 34 I gaine E rest 

BOND I P

210 EUPHUES 

be cause of thy crueltie ? Wilt thou violate the league of fayth, to 

enherite the land of folly? Shal affectio be of more force then 

friendshippe, loue then law, lust then loyaltie ? Knowest thou not 

that he that looseth his honestie hath nothing els to loose ? 

Tush the case is lyght where reason taketh place, to loue and to 5 

lyue well, is not graunted to Jupiter. Who so is blinded with the 

caule of beautie, decerneth no coulour of honestie. Did not Giges 

cut Candaules a coate by his owne measure ? Did not Paris though 

he were a welcome guest to Menelaus serue his hoste a slippery 

prancke? If Philautus had loued Lucilla, he woulde neuer haue 10 

suffered Euphues to haue seene hir. Is it not the praye that entiseth 

the theefe to ryfle? Is it not the pleasaunt bayte, that causeth y e 

fleetest fish to bite ? Is it not a bye word amongst vs, that golde 

maketh an honest man an ill man ? Did Philautus accompt Euphues 

to simple to decypher beautie, or supersticious not to desire it? 15 

Did he deeme him a saint in reiecting fancie, or a sotte in not 

discerning ? 

Thoughte hee him a Stoycke that he would not bee moued, or 

a stocke that he coulde not ? 

Well, well, seeing the wound that bleedeth inwarde is most 20 

daungerous, that the fire kepte close burneth most furious, that the 

Oouen dammed vp baketh soonest, that sores hauing no vent fester 

inwardly, it is high time to vnfolde my secret loue, to my secrete 

friende. Let Philautus behaue himseife neuer so craftely, hee shal 

know that it must be a wily Mouse that shal breed in the Cats eare, 25 

and bicause I resemble him in wit, I meane a little to dissemble 

with him in wyles. But O my Lucilla, if thy hearte, be made of 

that stone which may bee mollyfied onely with bloud, woulde I had 

sipped of that riuer in Caria which tourneth those that drincke of it 

to stones. If thine eares be anointed with the Oyle of Syria that 30 

bereaueth hearing, would mine eyes had bene rubbed with the sirrop 

of the Ceder tree which taketh away sight. 

[If Lucilla be so proude to disdayne poore Euphues, woulde 

Euphues were so happye to denye Lucilla, or if Lucilla be so mortyfied 

to lyue without loue, woulde Euphues were so fortunate to lyue 35 

in hate. I but my colde welcome foretelleth my colde suit, I but hir 

priuie glaunces signifie some good Fortune. Fye fonde foole 

5 cause E rest 7 descerneth T: discerneth M rest 13 fleetish EF 

15 to 1 ] so G rest supergticious] so superstitious C rest 20 inwardly 

Trest 23 inwardly] secretly T rest 29 that 1 ] the E rest 33 If.. . 

words. (28 lines) added Trest


Euphues, why goest thou about to alleadge those thinges to cutte 

off thy hope which she perhaps woulde neuer haue founde, or to 

comfort my selfe with those reasons which shee neuer meaneth to 

propose: Tush it were no loue if it were certeyne, and a small 

5 conquest it is to ouerthrowe those that neuer resisteth. 

In battayles there ought to be a doubtfull fight, and a desperat 

ende, in pleadinge a dififyculte enteraunce, and a defused determination, 

in loue a lyfe wythout hope, and a death without feare. Fyre 

commeth out of the hardest flynte wyth the Steele. Oyle out of the 

10 dryest Ieate by the fyre, loue out of the stoniest hearte by fayth,*by 

trust, by tyme. Hadde Tarquinius vsed his loue with coulours of 

continuaunce, Lucretia woulde eyther wyth some pitie haue aunswered 

hys desyre, or with some perswasion haue stayed hir death. It was 

the heate of hys lust, that made hyr hast to ende hir lyfe, wherefore 

15 loue in neyther respecte is to bee condempned, but hee of rashnesse 

to attempte a Ladye furiouslye, and shee of rygor to punishe hys 

follye in hir owne fleshe, a fact (in myne opinion) more worthy the 

name of crueltie then chastitie, and fitter for a Monster in the 

desartes, than a Matrone of Rome, Penelope no lesse constaunt then 

20 shee, yet more wyse, woulde bee wearie to unweaue that in the nyght, 

shee spunne in the daye, if Vlysses hadde not come home the sooner. 

There is no woeman, Euphues, but shee will yeelde in time, bee not 

therefore dismaied either with high lookes or frowarde words.] 

Euphues hauing thus talked with himselfe, Philautus entered the 

25 chamber, and finding him so worne and wasted with continual 

mourning, neither ioyeing in his meate, nor reioycing in his friend, 

with watry eyes vttered this speach. 

FRiende and fellow, as I am not ignoraunt of thy present weak- 

F 

nesse, so I am not priuie of the cause, and although I suspect 

30 many things, yet can I assure my selfe of no one thing. Therfore my 

good Euphues, for these doubtes and dompes of mine, either remoue 

the cause or reueale it. Thou hast hetherto found me a cheerefull 

companion in thy mirth, and nowe shalt thou finde me as careful 

wyth thee in thy moane. If altogether thou maist not be cured, yet 

3 my] thy TE rest 5 resist 1613 rest 7 diffused 1613 rest 11 Tarquinus 

A-G 12 countenuaunce M: coutenaunce CGE 1 : countenanced 

rest haue with some pitty E rest 15 either respect is not E rest 

15-6 but she . . . and he G 23 therefore] then E rest 27 watred F rest 

29 of] to E rest 31 thine Frest 33 my E 

P2

212 EUPHUES 

maist thou be comforted. If there be any thing that either by my 

friends may be procured, or by my life attained, that may either heale 

thee in parte, or helpe thee in all, I protest to thee by the name of 

a friende, that it shall rather be gotten with the losse of my body, 

then lost by getting a kingdome. Thou hast tried me, therfore trust 5 

mee, thou hast trusted me in many things, therfore trie me in this 

one thing. I neuer yet failed, and now I will not fainte. Be bolde 

to speake & blush not: thy sore is not so angry but I can salue • 

it, thy wotid not so deep but I can search it, thy griefe not so great 

but I can ease it. If it be ripe it shalbe lawnced, if it be broken it 10 

shalbe tainted, be it neuer so desperate it shalbe cured. Rise therfore 

Euphues, & take hart at grasse, younger y u shalt neuer be, 

plucke vp thy stomacke, if loue it selfe haue stoung thee it shal not 

stiffle thee. Though thou be enamoured of some lady thou shalt 

not be enchaQted. They yt begin to pine of a consQptio, w t out delay 15 

preserue theselues w t cullisses, he yt feeleth his stomack enflamed 

wt heat, coolith it eftsoones w t coserues : delayes breed daiigers, 

nothing so perillous as procrastinatio. Euphues hearing this cofort 

& friendly counsaile, dissgbled his sorrowing hart, with a smiling 

face, aunswering him foorthwith as folioweth. 20 

True it is Philautus that he which toucheth y e nettle tenderly, is 

soonest stoung, y t the Fly which plaieth with y e fire is singed in 

the flame, that he y t dallieth with women is drawen to his woe. And 

as y e Adamant draweth the heauy yron, the harp y e fleet Dolphin, so 

beauty allureth the chast minde to loue, & the wisest wit to lust: 25 

The example whereof I would it were no lesse profitable the y e 

experiSce to me is like to be perilous. The vine wattered with wine 

is soone withered, y e blossom in y e fattest grofld is quickly blasted, 

the Goat y e fatter she is the lesse fertil she is: yea, man the more 

wittie he is y e lesse happy he is. So it is Philautus (for why should 30 

I conceaie it fro thee, of who I am to take counsaile) yt since my 

last & first being w* thee at y e house of Ferardo, I haue felt such a 

furious battaile in mine own body, as if it be not speadely repressed 

by pollicie, it wil carry my minde (y e graud captain in this fight) into 

endles captiuitie. Ah Ziuia, Lima, thy courtly grace wtout coynes 35 

thy blazing beauty without blemish, thy curteous demeanour without 

curiosity, thy sweet speach sauoured wt wit, thy comly mirth tem- 

2 life] selfe E rest 9 thy 1 ] the TM great] sore G 11 tainted so all 

12 thou T rest 13 it selfe A TM only 16 wt]vpon E rest 17 heat] meate 

£ rest 20 and aunswered him as folioweth E rest 22 with] in G rest 

24 & the E rest 33 nay body E rest


pered with modesty, thy chast looks yet louely, thy sharp taunts yet 

pleasant, haue giuen me such a checke, yt sure I am at the next 

view of thy vertues, I shall take thee mate: And taking it not of 

a pawn, but of a prince, y e losse is to be accompted the lesse. And 

5 though they be comonly in a great choler that receiue the mate, yet 

would I willingly take euery minute x. mates, to enioy Liuia for my 

louing mate. Doubtlesse if euer she hir self haue ben scorched 

with the flames of desire, she will be ready to quench the coales 

with courtesie in an other, if euer shee haue ben attached of loue, 

10 she will rescue him yt is drenched in desire, if euer she haue ben 

taken w t the feauer of fancie, she wil help his ague, who by a 

quotidia fit is conuerted into phrensie : Neither can there bee 

vnder so delicate a hew lodged deceite, neither in so beautifull 

a mould a malicious minde. True it is that the disposition of the 

15 minde, followeth the composition of y e body: how the" can she be 

in minde any way imperfect, who in body is perfect euery way? I 

know my successe wil be good, but I know not how to haue accesse 

to my goddesse, neither do I want courage to discouer my loue to 

my fried, but some colour to cloak my coming to y e house of 

20 Ferardo, for if they be in Naples as ieolous as they be in the other 

parts of Italy, then it behoueth me to walke circuspectly, & to forge 

some cause for mine ofte coming. If therfore Philautus, y u canst 

set but this fether to mine arrow, y u shalt see me shoot so neere, y t 

thou wilt accopt me for a cunning Archer. And verily if I had not 

2 5 loued thee wel, I wold haue swalowed mine own sorrow in silece, 

knowing y t in loue nothing is so daiigerous, as to perticipate y e 

means therof to an other, & y t two may keep cousel if one be away. 

I am therfore enforced perforce to challenge that courtesie at thy 

handes, which earst thou diddest promise with thy heart, the per- 

30 fourmaunce whereof shall binde mee to PMautus, and proue thee 

faithfull to Euphues. [Now if thy cunning be answerable to thy 

good will, practise some pleasant coceipt vpon thy poore patiet: one 

dram of Ouids art, some of Tibullis drugs, one of Propertius pilles, 

which may cause me either to purge my new disease, or recouer my 

35 hoped desire. But I feare me wher so straunge a sicknesse is to be 

recured of so vnskillfull a Phisition, that either thou wilt be to bold 

to practise, or my body too weake to purge. But seing a desperate 

5 a om. E rest 6 x.] ten T: tenne M: then C 8 flame E rest 

12 into] to G rest 22 my E rest 24 I om. C 27 the before one 

E rest 31 Now ... handes (10 lines) added Trest tomyf? rest

214 EUPHUES 

disease is to be comitted to a desperate Doctor, I wil follow thy 

counsel and become thy cure, desiring thee to be as wise in ministring 

thy Phisick, as I haue bene willing to putte my lyfe into thy 

handes.] 

Philautus thincking all to bee golde that glistered, and all to bee 5 

gospell that Euphues vttered, aunswered his forged gloase with this 

friendly cloase. 

In that thou hast made me priuie to thy pourpose, X will not conceale 

my practise, in that thou crauest my aide, assure thy selfe I wil 

be the finger next the thumbe, insomuch as thou shalt neuer repent 10 

thee of the one or the other, [for perswade thy selfe that thou shalt 

flnde Philautus during life ready to comfort thee in thy misfortunes, 

and succour thee in thy necessitie.] Concerning Liuia though shee 

bee faire, yet is shee not so amiable as my Lucilla, whose seruaunt 

I haue bene the tearme of three yeares, but least comparisons 15 

shoulde seeme odious, chiefly where both the parties be without 

comparison, I will omit that, and seeing that wee had both rather be 

talking wyth them, then tatling of them, wee will immediatly goe to 

them. And truety Euphues I am not a little giadde, that I shall 

haue thee, not onely a comfort in my life, but also a companion in 20 

my loue: As thou hast bene wise in thy choice, so I hope thou 

shalt bee fortunate in thy chaunce. Liuia is a wench of more witte 

then beautie, Lucilla of more beautie then witte, both of more 

honestye then honoure, and yet both of suche honoure, as in all 

Naples there is not one in birthe, to bee compared wyth any of them 25 

both. Howe much therefore haue wee to reioyce in our choice? 

Touchinge our accesse bee thou secure, I will flappe Ferardo in the 

mouth with some conceyte, and fill his olde heade so full of newe 

fables that thou shalt rather bee earnestly entreated to repaire to his 

house, then euyll entreated to leaue it. As olde men are very sus- 30 

pitious to mistruste euerye thinge, so are they verye credulous to 

beleeue any thinge, the blinde man doth eate many a Fly: yea, but 

sayd Euphues take heede my Philautus, that thou thy selfe swallow 

not a gudgen, which woord Philautus did not marke, vntill he had 

almost digested it. But said Philautus let vs goe deuoutly to the 35 

10 the 1 ] thy JS 2 rest the 2 ] thy T rest 11-3 or . .. necessitie (2 lines) added 

Trest 16 parts EF 18 then] that E 1 22 wilt E rest 25 

any] eyther E 2 rest 26 both A-M only 27 shill G: shall E rest 

35 Philautus] all eds. Euphues, but the following Euphues consented shows that 

Philautus was intended, though from the allusion to my books in the added intervening 

passage it appears that Lyly in his second edition overlooked the mistake.


shrine of our Saincts there to offer our deuotion, [for my books 

teach me, that such a woftd must be healed wher it was first hurt, 

and for this disease we will vse a common remedie, but yet comfortable. 

The eye that blinded thee, shall make thee see, the Scorpion 

5 that stung thee shall heale thee, a sharpe sore hath a short cure, let 

vs goe :] to the which Euphues consented willyngly, smiling to himselfe 

to see how he had brought Philautus into a fooles Paradise. 

Heere you may see gentlemen the falshood in felowship, the 

fraude in friendship, the painted sheth with the leaden dagger, ye 

10 faire woords that make fooles faine, but I will not trouble you with 

superfluous addition vnto whom I feare mee I haue bene tedious, 

with the bare discourse of this rude historic 

Philautus and Euphues repaired to the house of Ferardo, where 

they found Mistres Lucilla and Liuia accompanied with other gentle- 

15 women neither beeing idle, nor well employed, but playing at 

cardes. But when Lucilla beheld Euphues she could scarcely containe 

hir selfe from embracing him, had not womanly shamefastnesse, 

and Philautus his presence, stayed hir wisdome. 

Euphues on the other side was fallen into such a trance, that he 

20 had not the power either to succour himselfe, or salute the gentlewomen. 

At the last Lucilla began as one that best might be bolde, 

on this manner. 

Gentlemen although your longe absence gaue mee occasion to 

thincke that you disliked your late entertainment, yet your comming 

25 at the last hath cut off my former suspition : And by so much the 

more you are welcome by how much the more you were wished for. 

But you gentleman (taking Euphues by the hande) were the rather 

wished for, for that your discourse being left vnperfect, caused vs all 

to long (as women are wont for things that like them) to haue an 

30 ende thereoff. Unto whom Philautus replyed as followeth. 

Mistres Lucilla thoughe your courtesie made vs nothing to doubt 

of our welcome, yet modestye caused vs to pinch courtesie who 

shoulde first come: as for my friende I thincke hee was neuer wished 

for heere so earnestly of any as of hymselfe, whether it might bee to 

1 our two Saints E 2 rest 1-6 for . . . goe : (5 lines) added T rest 5 

stinge C 8 may you F rest 12 rude om, E rest 16 would EF 

23 Gentleman E 1 24 that om. G rest last G rest 26 were] are 

C rest

2l6 EUPHUES 

renewe his talke or to recant his sayinges, I cannot tell. [Euphues 

takynge the tale out of Philautus mouth, aunswered: Mistres 

Lucilla, to recant verities were heresie, and renewe the prayses of 

woemen flattery: the onely cause I wyshed my selfe heere, was to 

giue thankes for so good entertainment the which I could no wayes 5 

deserue, & to breede a greater acquaintaunce if it might be to make 

amendes. Lucilla inflamed w t his presence, said, nay Euphues you 

shall not escape so, for if my curtesie, as you say, were y e cause of 

your coming, let it also be y e occasion of y e ending your former discourse, 

otherwise I shall thinke your proofe naked, and you shall 10 

flnde my rewarde nothinge. Euphues nowe as willing to obey as 

shee to commaunde, addressed himselfe to a farther conclusion, who 

seeing all the gentlewomen readie to giue him the hearing, proceeded 

as folioweth. 

I haue not yet forgotten yt my last talke with these gentlewomen, 15 

tended to their prayses, and therefore the ende must tye vp the iust 

proofe, otherwise I shold set downe Venus shadow without the liuely 

substance. 

As there is no one thing which can be reckened either concerning 

loue or loyaltie wherin women do not excell men, yet in feruencye 20 

aboue all others, they so farre exceede, that men are lyker to meruaile 

at them, then to imitate them, and readier to laugh at their 

vertues then emulate them. For as they be harde to be wonne 

without tryall of greate faith, so are they hard to be lost without 

great cause of ficklenesse. It is long before the colde water seeth, 25 

yet being once hot, it is long before it be cooled, it is long before 

salt come to his saltnesse, but beeing once seasoned, it neuer looseth 

his sauour. 

I for mine owne part am brought into a Paradise by the onely 

imagination of woemens vertues, and were I perswaded that all the 30 

Diuelles in hell were woemen, I woulde neuer liue deuoutlye to 

enherite heauen, or y t they were al Saintes in heauen, I woulde Hue 

more stricktly for feare of hell. What coulde Adam haue done in 

his Paradise before his fall without a woman, or howe woulde he 

haue ryse agayne after his fall without a woeman ? Artificers are 35 

wont in their last workes to excell themselues, yea, God when he had 

1 to om. C rest Euphues ... no no Lucilla. (57 lines) added T rest 

3 and to renew C rest 4 womens E l 9 of before your 8 Erest 12 conclusion 

T 13 gentlewoman T 20 where EF 23 imitate E rest 

25 seethe G 27 seanoned M 34 a woemen M could C rest 

35 rise C: risen E rest wyth TM


made all thinges, at the last, made man as most perfect, thinking 

nothing could be framed more excellent, yet after him hee created 

a woman, the expresse Image of Eternitie, the lyuely picture of 

Nature, the onely Steele glasse for man to beholde hys infirmities, by 

5 comparinge them wyth woemens perfections. Are they not more 

gentle, more wittie, more beautifull then men ? Are not men so 

bewytched with their qualyties that they become madde for loue, and 

woemen so wyse that they detest lust. 

I am entred into so large a fielde, that I shall sooner want time 

10 then proofe, and so cloye you wyth varietie of prayses that I feare 

mee I am lyke to infect women with pride, whiche yet they haue not, 

and men with spyte whyche yet I woulde not. For as the horse if he 

knew his owne strength were no wayes to be brideled, or the Unicorne 

his owne vertue, were neuer to bee caught, so woemen if they knewe 

15 what excellency were in them, I feare mee men should neuer winne 

them to their wills, or weane them from their minde. 

Lucilla beganne to smyle, saying, in faith Euphues, I woulde 

haue you staye there, for as the Sunne when he is at the highest 

beginneth to goe downe, so when the prayses of women are at the 

20 best, if you leaue not, they wyll beginne to fayle, but Euphues 

(beinge rapt with the sight of his Saint) aunswered, no no Lucilla.] 

But whilest hee was yet speakinge Ferardo entered, whome they all 

duetifully welcomed home, who rounding Philautus in the eare, 

desired hym to accompany him immediatly without farther pausinge, 

25 protesting it shoulde bee as well for his preferment as for his owne 

profite. Philautus consentinge, Ferardo sayd to his daughter. 

Lucilla the vrgent affaires I haue in hande, wyll scarce suffer mee 

to tarrye with you one houre, yet my retourne I hope will bee so 

short, that my absence shall not breede thy sorrowe : In the meane 

30 season I commit all thinges into thy custody wishing thee to vse thy 

accustomable courtesie. And seeinge I must take Philautus wyth 

mee, I will bee so bolde to craue you gentleman (his friende) to supplye 

his roome desiring you to take this hastye warninge for a hartye 

welcome and so to spende this time of mine absence in honest mirth. 

35 And thus I leaue you. 

Philautus knewe well the cause of this sodayne departure, which 

was to redeeme certeine landes that were morgaged in his Fathers 

8 doe detest C rest 10 phrases C rest 18 he] she E 25 it shoulde] 

that it should EF: that it would 1613 rest his 1 ] this G 26 vnto Trest 

31 accustomed E2 rest 36 his £ rest 37 morgaged in] in morgaged C

2l8 EUPHUES 

time to the vse of Ferardo who on that condition had before time 

promysed him his daughter in marriage. But retourne wee to 

Euphues. 

Euphues was surprised with such increadible ioye at this straunge 

euent, that hee had almost sounded, for seeing his coryuall to be de- 5 

parted, and Ferardo to gyue him so friendly entertainment, doubted 

not in time to get the good wyll of Lucilla: Whome findinge in place 

conuenient without company, with a bolde courage and comely 

gesture, he began to assay hir in this sort. 

Gentlewoman, my acquaintaunce beeing so little, I am afraide my 10 

credite will bee lesse, for that they commonly are soonest beleeued, 

that are best beloued, and they liked best, whome we haue knowne 

longest, neuerthelesse the noble minde suspecteth no guile wythout 

cause, neither condemneth any wight wythout proofe, hauing therefore 

notise of your heroycall heart, I am the better perswaded of my 15 

good hap. So it is Lucilla, that coming to Naples but to fetch fire, 

as the by word is, not to make my place of abode, I haue founde such 

flames that I can neither quench them wyth the water of free will, 

neyther coole them wyth wisedome. For as the Hoppe the poale 

beeing neuer so hye groweth to the ende, or as the drye Beeche 20 

kindled at the roote, neuer ieaueth vntill it come to the toppe, or as 

one droppe of poyson disperseth it selfe into euerye vaine, so affection 

hauinge caughte holde of my hearte, and the sparkles of loue 

kindled my liuer, wyll sodeinely, thoughe secretlye flame vp into my 

heade, and spreade it selfe into euerye sinewe. It is your beautie 25 

(pardon my abrupte boldenesse) Ladye that hath taken euery part 

of mee prisoner, and brought me to this deepe distresse, but seeinge 

women when one praiseth them for their desertes, deeme that hee 

flattereth them to obteine his desire, I am heere present to yelde my 

selfe to such tryall, as your courtesie in this behalfe shall require: 30 

Yet will you comonly obiect this to such as serue you & sterue to 

winne your good wil, that hot loue is soone colde, that the Bauin 

though it bourne bright, is but a blaze, that scaldinge water if it 

stande a while tourneth almost to yse, that pepper though it be hot 

in the mouth is colde in the mawe, that the faith of men though it 35 

frye in their woordes, it freeseth in theire works: Which things 

4 supposed A 5 sounded] swouned 1631-6 14 any with without C: 

anye without G rest 21 to] at G 23 sparks E rest 26 haue C 27 

vnto TMG rest 31 sterue AT: starue M-1613 : striue 1617-36


(Lucilla) albeit they be sufficient to reproue the lightnesse of some 

one, yet can it not conuince euery one of lewdenes, neither ought 

the constancie of all, to be brought in question through the subtiltie 

of a fewe. For although the worme entereth almost into euery 

5 woode, yet he eateth not the Ceder tree: Though the stone Cylindrus 

at euery thunder clappe, rowle from the hill, yet the pure sleeke 

stone mounteth at the noyse, though the rust fret the hardest Steele, 

yet doth it not eate into the Emeraulde, though Polypus chaunge 

his hew, yet y e Salamander keepeth his coulour, though Proteus 

10 transforme himselfe into euery shape, yet Pygmalion retaineth his 

olde forme, though Aeneas were to fickle to Dido, yet Troylus was 

to faithfull to Crtœssida, thoughe others seeme counterfaite in their 

deedes, yet Lucilla perswade your selfe that Euphues will bee alwayes 

curraunt in his dealinges. But as the true golde is tryed by the 

15 touch, the pure flinte by the stroke of the yron, so the loyall heart 

of the faithfull louer, is knowen by the tryall of his Lady: of the 

which tryall (Lucilla) .'if you shall accompte Euphues worthy, assure 

your selfe, hee wyll bee as readie to offer himselfe a sacrifice for 

your sweet sake, as your selfe shall bee willinge to employe hym in 

20 your seruice. Neyther doth hee desire to bee trusted any way, vntill 

he shall be tried euery way, neither doth hee craue credite at the 

first, but a good countenaunce til time his desire shall be made 

manifest by hys desertes. Thus not blynded by lyght affection, but 

dazeled with your rare perfection, and boldened by your exceeding 

25 courtesie, I haue vnfolded mine entire loue, desiring you hauing so 

good leasure, to giue so friendly an aunswere, as I may receiue comforte, 

and you commendacion. 

Lucilla although she were contented to heare this desired discourse, 

yet did shee seeme to bee somewhat displeased: And truely 

30 I know not whether it bee peculyar to that sex to dissemble with 

those, whome they most desire, or whether by craft they haue learned 

outwardely to loath that, which inwardely they most loue: yet wisely 

did she cast this in hir head, that if she should yeelde at the first 

assault he woulde thinke hir a lyght huswife, if she should reiect him 

35 scornefully a very haggard, minding therefore that he shoulde neyther 

take holde of hir promise, neyther vnkindenesse of hir precisenesse, 

she fedde him indifferently, with hope and dispayre, reason and 

2 it] they Trest 10 in E rest 12 Cressid TMC: Cressida G rest 

15 and before the 1 G rest 26 an om. E rest 28 content E rest

220 EUPHUES 

affection, lyfe and death. Yet in the ende arguing wittilly vpon 

certeine questions, they fell to suche agreement as poore Philautus 

woulde not haue agreed vnto if hee had bene present, yet alwayes 

.keepinge the body vndefiled. And thus shee replyed. 

G Entleman as you may suspecte me of Idelnesse in giuing 5 

eare to your talke, so may you conuince me of lyghtenesse 

in answering such toyes, certes as you haue made mine eares glowe 

at the rehearsall of your loue, so haue you galled my hart with the 

remembrance of your folly. Though you came to Naples as a 

straunger, yet were you welcome to my fathers house as a friend. 10 

And can you then so much transgresse y e bounds of honour (I will 

not say of honestie) as to solicite a sute more sharpe to me then 

deathe ? I haue hetherto God bethancked, liued wythout suspition 

of lewdenesse, and shall I nowe incurre the daunger of sensuall 

lybertie? What hope can you haue to obtayne my loue, seeing yet 15 

I coulde neuer affoord you a good looke ? Doe you therefore thinke 

me easely entised to the bent of your bow, bicause I was easely entreated 

to lysten to your late discourse ? Or seeing mee (as finely 

you glose) to excell all other in beautie, did you deeme that I would 

exceed all other in beastlynesse ? But yet I am not angry Eupheus 20 

but in an agony, for who is shee that will frette or fume with one 

that loueth hir, if this loue to delude mee bee not dissembled. It 

is that which causeth me most to feare, not that my beautie is vnknown 

to my selfe but that commonly we poore wenches are deluded 

through lyght beliefe, and ye men are naturally enclined craftely to 2 5 

leade your lyfe. When the Foxe preacheth the Geese perishe. 

The Crocodile shrowdeth greatest treason vnder most pitifull teares: 

in a kissing mouth there lyeth a gallyng minde. You haue made so 

large proffer of your seruice, and so fayre promises of fidelytie, that 

were I not ouer charie of mine honestie, you would inueigle me to 30 

shake handes with chastitie. But certes I will eyther leade a Uirgins 

lyfe in earth (though I leade Apes in hell) or els follow thee rather 

then thy giftes: yet am I neither so precise to refuse thy proffer, 

neither so peeuish to disdain thy good will: So excellent alwayes 

are y e giftes which are made acceptable by the vertue of the giuer. 35 

I did at the firste entraunce discerne thy loue but yet dissemble it. 

4 the] her G rest 11 bounds AF-1636 : bonds T-E 19 you 2 ] ye C rest 

could E rest 20 Euphues T rest 31 in an ATGnstx in MC 

nof before fret A 39 proffer] a profer E rest


Thy wanton glaunces, thy scalding sighes, thy louing signes, caused 

me to blush for shame, and to looke wanne for feare, least they 

should be perceiued of any. These subtill shiftes, these paynted 

practises (if I were to be wonne) woulde soone weane mee from the 

5 teate of Vesta, to the toyes of Venus. Besides this thy comly grace, 

thy rare quallyties, thy exquisite perfection, were able to moue a 

minde halfe mortified to transgresse the bondes of maydenly modestie. 

But God shielde Lucilla, that thou shouldest be so carelesse 

of thine honour as to commit the state thereoff to a stranger. 

10 Learne thou by me Euphues to dispise things that be amiable, to 

forgoe delightfull practises, beleeue mee it is pietie to abstayne from 

pleasure. 

Thou arte not the first that hath solicited this sute, but the first 

that goeth about to seduce mee, neyther discernest thou more then 

15 other, but darest more then any, neyther hast thou more arte to 

discouer thy meaninge, but more hearte to open thy minde : But 

thou preferrest mee before thy landes, thy lyuings, thy lyfe: thou 

offerest thy selfe a Sacrifice for my securitie, thou proferest mee the 

whole and onelye souereigntie of thy seruice : Truely I were very 

20 cruell and harde hearted if I should not loue thee : harde hearted 

albeit I am not, but truely loue thee I cannot, whome I doubte to 

be my louer. 

Moreouer I haue not bene vsed to the court of Cupide, wherin 

ther be more slights then there be Hares in Athon, then Bees in 

25 Hybla, then stars in Heauen. Besides this, the common people 

heere in Naples are not onelye both verye suspitious of other mens 

matters and manners, but also very iealous ouer other mens children 

and maydens: eyther therefore dissemble thy fancie, or desist from 

thy folly. 

30 But why shouldest thou desist from the one, seeinge thou canst 

cunningly dissemble the other. My father is nowe gone to Venice, 

and as I am vncerteine of his retourne, so am I not priuie to the 

cause of his trauayle: But yet is he so from hence that he seethe 

me in his absence. Knowest thou not Euphues that kinges haue 

35 long armes & rulers large reches ? neither let this comfort thee, that 

at his departure he deputed thee in Philautus place. Although my 

face cause him to mistrust my loyaltie, yet my fayth enforceth him 

2 to 2 om. E rest 4 I] it EF 7 bands E rest 10 those before 

things G rest 11 pitty EF 21-2 whome ... be] whom I doubt thee to 

be .E: when I doubt thee to be F-1636 24 slights] sights G 33 he is 

Crest 35 reaches MGHrest: reachers EF 37 causeth Erest

222 

EUPHUES 

to giue mee this lybertie, though he be suspitious of my fayre hew, 

yet is he secure of my firme honestie. But alas Euphues, what truth 

can there be found in a trauayler ? what stay in a stranger ? whose 

words & bodyes both watch but for a winde, whose feete are euer 

fleeting, whose fayth plighted on the shoare, is tourned to periurie 5 

when they hoiste saile. Who more trayterous to Phillis then 

Demophoon ? yet he a trauailer. Who more periured to Dido then 

Aeneas ? and he a stranger: both these Queenes, both they Caytiffes. 

Who more false to Ariadne then Theseus? yet he a sayler. Who 

more fickle to Medea then Iason ? yet he a starter: both these 10 

daughters to great Princes, both they vnfaythfull of promisses. Is 

it then lykely that Euphues will be faithfull to Lucilla beeing in Naples 

but a soiourner? I haue not yet forgotten the inuectiue (I can no 

otherwise terme it) which thou madest against beautie, saying it was 

a deceiptfull bayte with a deadly hooke, & a sweete poyson in *5 

a paynted potte. Canst thou then be so vnwise to swallow the bayte 

which will breede thy bane? To swill the drinke that will expire 

thy date? To desire the wight that will workethy death? But 

it may bee that with y e Scorpion thou canst feede on the earth, 

or with the Quaile and Roebucke, be fatte with poyson, or with 20 

beautie lyue in ail brauerie. I feare me thou hast the stone 

Continens about thee, which is named of the contrarye, that thoughe 

thou pretende faithe in thy words, thou deuisest fraude in thy heart: 

yt though thou seeme to prefer loue, thou art inflamed with lust. 

And what for that ? Though thou haue eaten the seedes of Rockatte, 25 

which breede incontinencie, yet haue I chewed the leafe Cresse 

which mainteineth modestie. Though thou beare in thy bosome 

the hearbe Araxa most noisome to virginitie, yet haue I y e stone 

yt groweth in the mounte Tmolus, the vpholder of chastitie. You 

may gentleman accompte me for a colde Prophet, thus hastely to 30 

deuine of your disposition, pardon mee Euphues if in loue I cast 

beyonde the Moone, which bringeth vs women to endlesse moane. 

Although I my selfe were neuer burnt, whereby I should dread the 

fire, yet the scorching of others in the flames of fancie, warneth me 

to beware: Though I as yet neuer tryed any faithles, wherby I should 35 

3 be om. G stay] trust G rest 6 hoyse ME2F 7 Demophon E 

1613 rest: Domophon F 11 their promises T rest 12 lykely] like E rest 

13 can no] cannot Grest 22 Continens^: Contineus A-E: Continues [1623?] 

24 y*] and G rest proffer 1617-36 25 Reckat TMC: Rackat G: 

Racket £: Rocket F-1636 27 mayteineth A 30 Gentlemen G-F 

35 as yet I G rest


be fearefull, yet haue I read of many that haue bene periured, which 

causeth me to be carefull: though I am able to couince none by 

proofe, yet am I enforced to suspect one vppon probabilyties. Alas 

we silly soules which haue neyther witte to decypher the wyles of 

5 men, nor wisedome to dissemble our affection, neyther crafte to 

trayne in young louers, neither courage to withstande their encounters, 

neyther discretion to discerne their dubling, neither hard hearts to 

reiect their complaynts, wee I say are soone enticed, beeing by 

nature simple, and easily entangled, beeinge apte to receiue the 

10 impression of loue. But alas it is both common and lamentable, 

to beholde simplicitie intrapped by subtilytie, and those that haue 

most might, to be infected with most mallice. The Spider weaueth 

a fine webbe to hang the Fly, the Wolfe weareth a faire face to 

deuoure the Lambe, the Merlin striketh at the Partridge, the Eagle 

35 often snappeth at the Fly, men are alwayes laying baytes for women, 

which are the weaker vessells : but as yet I could neuer heare man 

by such snares to intrappe man: For true it is that men themselues 

haue by vse obserued, that it must be a hard winter, when one 

Wolfe eateth an other. I haue read y t the Bull being tyed to y e 

20 Figge tree loseth his strength, that the whole heard of Deare stande 

at the gaze, if they smell a sweete apple, that the Dolphin by the 

sound of Musicke is brought to y e shore. And then no meruaile 

it is that if the fierce Bull be tamed with the Figge tree, if that 

women beeing as weake as sheepe, be ouercome with a Figge, if the 

25 wilde Deare be caughte with an apple, that the tame Damzell is 

wonne with a blossome, if the fleete Dolphin be allured with harmony, 

that women be entangled with the melodie of mens speach, 

fayre promises and solemne protestations. But follye it were for 

mee to marke their mischiefes, sith I am neyther able, neyther they 

30 willynge to amende their manners, it becommeth mee rather to shew 

what our sexe should doe, then to open what yours doth. And 

seeing I cannot by reason restrayne your importunate sute, I will 

by rigour done on my selfe, cause you to refraine the meanes. 

I would to God Ferardo were in this poynte lyke to Lysander, which 

35 would not suffer his daughters to weare gorgeous apparell, saying 

it would rather make them common then comely. I would it were 

in Naples a law, which was a custome in Aegypt, that woemen should 

alwayes go barefoote, to the intent they might keepe themselues 

11 by] in G rest 13 a 1 ] the G rest 15 often om. E rest 17 themseleus 

A 21 of before a G 26 fleete] fish F

224 

EUPHUES 

alwayes at home, that they shoulde be euer lyke to y t Snaile, which 

hath euer his house on his head. I meane so to mortifie my selfe 

that in stead of silkes I will weare sackecloth, for Owches and Bracelettes, 

Leere and Caddys, for the Lute, vse the Distaffe, for the 

Penne, the Needle, for louers Sonettes, Dauids Psalmes. But yet 5 

I am not so senceles altogether to reiect your seruice: which if 

I were certeinly assured to proceed of a simple minde, it shold not 

receiue so simple a reward. And what greater triall can I haue 

of thy simplicitie & truth, the thine owne requeste which desireth 

a triall. I, but in the coldest flinte there is hotte fire, the Bee that 10 

hath honny in hir mouth, hath a sting in hir tayle, the tree that 

beareth the sweetest fruite, hath a sower sappe, yea the wordes of 

men, though they seeme smoothe as oyle, yet their heartes are as 

crooked as the stalke of Iuie. I woulde not Euphues that thou 

shouldest condemne me of rigour, in that I seeke to ass wage thy 15 

follye by reason, but take this by the way that although as yet I am 

disposed to lyke of none, yet whensoeuer I shall loue any I will not 

forget thee, in the meane season accompt me thy friend, for thy foe 

I will neuer be. 

Euphues was brought into a greate quandarie and as it were 20 

a colde shiuering, to heare this newe kinde of kindenesse. such sweete 

meate, such sower sauce, such faire wordes, such faint promises, 

such hotte loue, such colde desire, such certayne hope, such sodaine 

chaunge, and stoode lyke one that had looked on Medusaes heade, 

and so had bene tourned into a stone. 35 

Lucilla seeing him in this pitifull plight and fearing he would 

take stande if the lure were not cast out, toke him by the hand 

and wringing him softely with a smiling countenaunce began thus 

to comfort him. 

Mee thinkes Euphues chaungeing so your couloure vpon the 30 

sodaine, you will soone chaunge your coppie: is your minde on your 

meat ? a penny for your thought. 

Mistresse (quod he) if you would buy all my thoughts at that 

price, I shoulde neuer be wearye of thinking, but seeinge it is too 

deere, reade it, and take it for nothing. 35 

It seemes to me (sayd she) y t you are in some browne study, what 

coulours you mighte best weare for your Ladye. 

In deede Lucilla you leuell shrewdly at my thought, by the ayme 

1 y t ] the T rest 8 can] shall G rest 12 sappe] say E2F 21 shieuering 

G: sheeuering EF 33 quoth Trest 34 tool so G rest


of your owne imagination, for you haue giuen vnto me a true loues 

knotte wrought of chaungeable silke, and you deeme mee that I am 

deuisinge howe I mighte haue my coulours chaungeable also, that 

they mighte agree: But lette this with such toyes and deuises passe, 

5 if it please you to commaund me any seruice, I am heere ready to 

attende your leasure. No seruice Euphues, but that you keepe 

silence vntill I haue vttered my minde: and secrecie when I haue 

vnfolded my meaning. 

If I should offende in the one I were to bold, if in the other too 

10 beastly. 

Well then Euphues (sayd shee) so it is that for the hope that 

I conceiue of thy loyaltie and the happy successe that is lyke to 

ensue of this our loue, I am content to yeelde thee the place in my 

heart which thou desirest and deseruest aboue all other: which 

15 consent in me if it may any wayes breede thy contentation, sure 

I am that it will euery way worke my comforte. But as eyther thou 

tenderest mine honour or thine owne safetie, vse such secrecie in 

this matter that my father haue no incklyng heereoff, before I haue 

framed his minde fitte for our purpose. And though women haue 

20 small force to ouercome men by reason, yet haue they good Fortune 

to vndermine them by pollycie. The softe droppes of raine pearce 

the hard Marble, many strokes ouerthrow the tallest Oke, a silly 

woman in time may make such a breach into a mans hearte as 

hir teares may enter without resistaunce, then doubt not but I will 

25 so vndermine mine olde father, as quickly I will enioy my new friend. 

Tush Philautus was liked for fashion sake, but neuer loued for fancie 

sake, & this I vow by y e fayth of a Uirgin and by the loue I beare 

thee, (for greater bands to confirme my vowe I haue not) that my 

father shall sooner martir me in the fire then marry me to Philautus. 

30 No no Euphues thou onely hast wonne me by loue, and shalt only 

weare me by law, I force not Philautus his fury, so I may haue 

Euphues his friendship, neither will I prefer his possessions before 

thy person, neyther esteeme better of his lands then of thy loue. 

Ferardo shall sooner disherite me of my patrimony, then dishonour 

35 me in breaking my promise. It is not his great mannors, but thy , 

good manners, that shall make my marriage. In token of which my 

1 loners G rest 2 mee om. T rest 6 pleasure G rest 20 good 

om. E rest 21, 25 vndermmd EF(cf. p. 229,1. 21) 23 into] in E 

rest 28 to before thee F 34 disinherit 1613 rest 35 promise it A: 

promise : it T: promise ? It M 

BOND I Q

226 EUPHUES 

sincere affection, I giue thee my hande in pawne and my heart for 

euer to be thy Lucilla. 

Unto whome Euphues aunswered in this manner. 

If my tongue were able to vtter the ioyes that my heart hath 

conceiued, I feare me though I be wel beloued, yet I shoulde hardlye 5 

bee beleeued. Ah my Lucilla howe much am I bounde to thee, 

whiche preferrest mine vnworthinesse before thy Fathers wrath, my 

happinesse before thine owne misfortune, my loue before thine owne 

lyfe ? howe might I excell thee in courtesie, whome no mortall creature 

can exceede in constancie ? I finde it nowe for a setled truth, 10 

which earst I accompted for a vaine talke, that the Purple dye will 

neuer staine, that the pure Cyuet will neuer loose his sauour, that 

the greene Laurell will neuer chaunge his coulour, that beautie can 

neuer bee blotted with discourtesie; As touching secrecie in this 

behalfe, assure thy selfe, that I wyll not so much as tell it to my 15 

selfe. Commaund Euphues to runne, to ride, to vndertake any 

exploite be it neuer so daungerous, to hazarde himselfe in any enterprise, 

be it neuer so' desperate: As they were thus pleasauntly 

Conferring the one with the other, Liuia (whom Euphues made his 

stale) enfered into the parlor, vnto whom Lucilla spake in these 20 

tefmes. 

Dost thou not laugh Liuia to see my ghostly father keepe me 

heere so long at shrift? Truely (aunswered Liuia) me thinckes 

that you smile at some pleasaunt shift, either hee is slow in enquiring 

of your faultes, or you slack in aunswering of his questions, and 25 

thus being supper time they al sat downe, Lucilla wel pleased, no 

man better content then Euphues, who after hys repast hauing no 

opportunitie to conferre wyth his louer, had small lust to continue 

with the gentlewornen any longer, seeinge therefore hee coulde 

frame no meanes to woorke his delight, hee coyned an excuse 30 

to hasten his departure, promisinge the next morninge to trouble 

them againe as a guest more bolde then welcome, although in deed 

he thought himselfe to bee the better welcome in saying that hee 

would come. 

But as Ferardo went in poste, so hee retourned in haste, hauinge 35 

concluded wyth Philautus, that the marriage shoulde immediatly 

bee consummated which wrought such a content in Philautus yt 

5 should I G 13 his om. E rest 15 thy] your G rest 25 of 2 om, 

C rest 28 apportunitie A Loue E rest 29 gentlewoman A 

33 the om. C rest


hfe was almost in an extasie through the extremitie of hys passions: 

such is the fulnesse and force of pleasure, that there is nothinge 

so daungerous as the fruityon, yet knowinge that delayes bringe 

daungers, althoughe hee nothinge doubted of Lucilla, whome hee 

5 loued, yet feared hee the ficklenesse of olde men, which is alwayes 

to bee mistrusted. He vrged therefore Ftrardo to breake wyth his 

daughter who beeinge willinge to haue the match made, was content 

incontinently to procure the meanes: findinge therefore his daughter 

at leasure, and hauing knowledge of hir former loue, spake to hir 

10 as followeth. 

Deere daughter, as thou hast longe tyme lyued a mayden, so 

nowe thou must learne to bee a Mother, and as I haue bene carefull 

to bringe thee vpp a virgin, so am I nowe desirous to make thee 

a wyfe. Neyther ought I in this matter to vse any perswasions, 

15 for y t maydens comonly now a daies are no sooner borne, but they 

begin to bride it: neither to offer any greate portions for that thou 

knowest thou shalt inherite all my possessions. Mine onely care 

hath bene hetherto to match thee with such an one, as shoulde 

be of good wealth able to maynteine thee, of great worship able 

20 to compare with thee in birth, of honest conditions to deserue thy 

loue, and an Italian borne to enioye my landes. At the laste 

I haue founde one aunswerable to my desire, a gentleman of great 

reuenewes, of a noble progenie, of honest behauiour, of comely 

personage, borne and brought vp in Naples, Philautus (thy friende 

25 as I gesse) thy husband Lucilla, if thou lyke it, neither canst thou 

dislike hym, who wanteth nothing that shoulde cause thy liking, 

neyther hath any thinge that shoulde breede thy loathing. And 

surely I reioyce the more, that thou shalt be linked to him in 

marriage, whome thou hast loued as I heare beeinge a mayden, 

3° neither can there any iarres kindle betweene them, where the mindes 

be so vnited, neyther any ielowsie arise, where loue hathe so longe 

bene setled. Therefore Lucilla to the ende the desire of either 

of you may now be accomplished, to the delight of you both, I am 

here come to finishe the contract by giuinge handes, whiche you 

35 haue alredy begun between your selues by ioyning of hearts, that as 

* God doth witnesse the one in your consciences, so the worlde may 

testifie the other by your conuersations, and therefore Lucilla make 

such aunswere to my request, as maye like me and satisfie thy friende. 

15 they] then C 18 heterto A 23 progenie A 33 of 1 om. C 

35 by] in E rest 36 in] by E rest 

Q2

228 EUPHUES 

Lucilla abashed with this sodeine speach of hir father, yet boldened 

by the loue of hir friend, with a comly bashfulnesse aunswered him 

in this manner. 

Reuerend Sir, the sweetnesse that I haue found in the vndefiled 

estate of virginitie, causeth me to loath the sower sauce which is 5 

mixed with matrimony, and y e quiet life which I haue tried being 

a maiden, maketh me to shun the cares yt are alwaies incidet to 

a mother, neither am I so wedded to the worlde that I should be 

moued wyth greate possessions, neyther so bewitched with wantonnesse, 

that I should bee entised with any mans proportion, neither 10 

if I were so dysposed woulde I bee so proude to desire one of noble 

progenie, or so precise to choose one onely in myne owne countrey, 

for that commonlye these thinges happen alwayes to the contrarie. 

Do wee not see the noble to matche wyth the base, the rich with 

the poore, the Italian oftentimes with the Portingale? As loue 15 

knoweth no lawes, so it regardeth no conditions, as the louer maketh 

no pawse where hee liketh, so hee maketh no conscience of these 

idle ceremonies. In that Philautus is the man that threateneth 

suche kindenesse at my handes, and such courtesie at yours, that 

hee shoulde accompte mee his wyfe before hee woe mee, certeinely 20 

hee is lyke for mee to make hys reckoninge twise, bicause hee 

reconeth without hys hostesse. And in this Philautus woulde eyther 

shew himselfe of greate wisdome to perswade, or mee of great lightnesse 

to be allured: although the loadstone drawe yron, yet it 

cannot moue golde, thoughe the lette gather vp the light strawe, 25 

yet can it not take vp the pure Steele. Althoughe Philautus thincke 

himselfe of vertue sufficient to winne his louer, yet shall hee not 

obtaine Lucilla. I cannot but smile to heare, that a marriage should 

bee solemnized, where neuer was any mention of assuringe, and that 

the woeing should bee a day after the weddinge. Certes if when 30 

I looked merilye on Philautus, hee deemed it in the waye of marriage, 

or if seeinge mee disposed to ieste, he tooke mee in good 

earnest, then sure hee might gather some presumption of my loue, 

but no promise : But mee thincks it is good reason, that I shoulde 

be at mine owne brydeail, and not gyuen in the Church, before 35 

I know the Bridegrome. Therefore deere Father in mine opinion* 

as there can bee no bargaine, where both be not agreede, neither 

5 state C rest 15 Portugale 1613-23: Portugall 1631, 1636 20 certeine 

C rest 21 mee om. C: for mee om. G rest 24 draweth E rest 25 

light om. C rest 32 dispose A 34 think E rest


any Indentures sealed, where the one will not consent, so can there 

be no contract where both be not content, no banes asked lawfully 

where one of the parties forbiddeth the, no marriage made where 

no match was ment: But I will hereafter frame my selfe to be coy, 

5 seeing I am claimed for a wife bicauseI haue bene courteous, and 

giue my selfe to melancholy, seing I am accompted wonne in that 

I haue bene merrie: And if euery gentleman be made of the mettall 

that Philautus is, then I feare I shall be challenged of as many as 

I haue vsed to company with, and bee a common wife to all those 

10 that haue commonly resorted hether. 

My duetie therefore euer reserued, I heere on my knees forsweare 

Philautus for my husband, althoughe I accept him for my friende, 

and seeing I shall hardly bee induced euer to match with any, 

I beseeche you, if by your Fatherly loue I shall bee compelled, 

15 that I may match wyth such a one as both I may loue, and you 

may like. 

Ferardo beeing a graue and wise Gentleman, although he were 

throughly angry, yet he dissembled his fury, to the ende he might 

by craft discouer hir fancie, and whispering Philautus in the eare 

20 (who stood as though he had a Flea in his eare) desired him to 

keepe silence, vntil he had vndermined hir by subtiltie, which 

Philautus hauing graunted, Ferardo began to sift his daughter with 

this deuice. 

Lucilla thy coulour sheweth thee to be in a greate choler, and thy 

25 hot woords bewray thy heauy wrath, but bee patient, seeinge all my 

talke was onelye to trye thee, I am neyther so vnnaturall to wreaste 

thee against thine owne will, neyther so malytious to wedde thee to 

any, agaynste thine owne likinge: for well I knowe what iarres, what 

ielousie, what striefe, what stormes ensue, where the matche is made 

30 rather by the compulsion of the parents, then by consent of the 

parties, neyther doe I like thee the lesse, in that thou lykest 

Philautus so little, neyther can Philautus loue thee the worse, 

in that thou louest thy selfe so well, wishinge rather to stande to 

thy chaunce, then to the choyse of any other. But this gryueth 

35 mee most, that thou art almost vowed to the vayne order of the 

vestali virgins, despisinge, or at the least not desiring the sacred 

1 Indenture E 2 rest 6 accounted C-E 1 :counted E 2 rest 10 hither 

E rest 18 that before he 2 G rest 19 the] his G rest 21 vnderminded 

E 1613-23 (cf p. 225,1. 21) 24 greate om, E rest 27 thy F 

30 the 1 om. C rest the before consent T rest 33 thee before rather 

Grest

230 EUPHUES 

bandes of Iuno hir bedde. If thy Mother had bene of that minde 

when shee was a mayden, thou haddest not nowe bene borne to bee 

of this minde to bee a virginne: Waye wyth thy selfe what slender 

proflte they bring to the common wealth, what sleight pleasure to 

themselues, what greate grieft to theire parentes which ioye most in 5 

their ofspringe, and desire moste to enioye the noble and blessed 

name of a graundfather. 

Thou knowest that the tallest Ashe is cut downe for fuell, bycause 

it beareth no good fruite, that the Cowe that gyues no mylke is 

brought to the slaughter, that the Drone that gathereth no honny 10 

is contemned, that the woman that maketh hyr selfe barren by not 

marryinge, is accompted among the Grecian Ladyes worse then 

a carryon, as Homere reporteth. Therefore Lucilla if thou haue 

any care to bee a comforte to mye hoarye haires, or a commoditye 

to thy common weale, frame thy selfe to that honourable estate of 1 5 

matrimonye, whiche was sanctified in Paradise, allowed of the 

Patriarches, hallowed of the olde Prophetes, and commended of 

all persons. If thou lyke any, bee not ashamed to tell it mee, 

whiche onely am to exhorte thee, yea, and as much as in mee lyeth 

to commaunde thee, to loue one: If hee bee base thy bloude wyll 20 

make hym noble, if beggerlye thy goodes shall make hym wealthy, 

if a straunger thy freedoms may enfraunchise hym: if hee bee 

younge he is the more fitter to be thy pheare, if he be olde the 

lyker to thine aged Father. For I had rather thou shouldest leade 

a lyfe to thine owne lykeinge in earthe, then to thy greate tormentes 25 

leade Apes in Hell. Be bolde therefore to make me partner of thy 

desire, whiche will be partaker of thy dysease, yea, and a furtherer of 

thy delights, as farre as either my friendes, or my landes, or my life 

will stretch. 

Lucilla perceiuinge the drifte of the olde Foxe hir Father, wayed 30 

with hir selfe what was beste to be done, at the laste not wayinge hir 

Fathers yll wyll, but encouraged by loue, shaped hym an aunswere 

whiche pleased Ferardo but a little, and pinched Philautus on the 

parsons side on thys manner. 

F Deere Father Ferardo, althoughe I see the bayte you laye to 35 

catche me, yet I am content to swallowe the hooke, neyther are you 

1 bondes C rest (1623 misprints bones) 4 slight T rest 7 a om. 

E rest 8-9 bycause . .. good] for it beareth no E rest 15 thy 1 ] the C rest 

that] yt E: ye F 1613 : the 1617 rest 20 shall G rest 22 may] shall 

G rest 26 partner A TE 1 : partaker ME 2 rest; pertener C: partener G 

31 the before beste TMC 34 persons T-E 1 1631


more desirous to take me nappinge, then I willinge to confesse my 

meaninge. So it is that loue hath as well inueigled me as others, 

which make it as straunge as I. Neyther doe I loue hym so meanely 

that I should be ashamed of his name, neyther is hys personage so 

5 meane that I shoulde loue hym shamefullye: It is Euphues that 

lately arryued heere at Naples, that hath battered the bulwarke of 

my breste, and shall shortly enter as conquerour into my bosome: 

What his wealth is I neither know it nor waye it, what his wit is all 

Naples doth knowe it, and wonder at it, neyther haue I bene curious 

10 to enquire of his progenitors, for that I knowe so noble a minde 

could take no Originall but from a noble man, for as no birde can 

looke againe the Sunne, but those that bee bredde of the Eagle, 

neyther any Hawke soare so hie as the broode of the Hobbie, so 

no wight can haue suche excellent qualities excepte hee descend of 

15 a noble race, neyther be of so highe capacitie, vnlesse hee issue of 

a high progenie. And I hope Philautus wyll not bee my foe, seeinge 

I haue chosen his deere friende, neither you Father bee displeased 

in that Philautus is displaced. You neede not muse that I shoulde 

so sodeinely bee intangled, loue giues no reason of choice, neither 

20 will it suffer anye repulse? Mirha was enamoured of hir naturall 

Father, Biblis of hir brother, Phcedra of hir sonne in lawe : If nature 

can no way resist the fury of affection, howe should it be stayed by 

wisdome ? 

Ferardo interrupting hir in the middle of hyr discourse, although 

25 he were moued with inward grudge, yet he wisely repressed his anger, 

knowing that sharpe wordes would but sharpen hir froward wil, and 

thus answered hir briefly. 

Lucilla, as I am not presently to graunt my good will, so meane 

I not to reprehende thy choyce, yet wisdome wylleth mee to pawse, 

30 vntill I haue called what maye happen to my remembraunce, and 

warneth thee to bee circumspecte, leaste thy rashe conceyte bringe 

a sharpe repentaunce. As for you Philautus I woulde not haue you 

dispaire seeinge a woman dothe oftentimes chaunge hir desire. Unto 

whome Philautus in fewe woordes made aunswere. 

35 Certeinely Ferardo I take the lesse griefe in that I see hir so 

greedy after Euphues, and by so much the more I am content to 

leaue my sute, by how much the more she seemeth to disdayne my 

12 against T rest the 2 ] an F 14 descended E2-1613 15 issue] 

be E rest 25 was F 28 my] thy F 30 what maye happen in 

parenthesis E rest 33 seeing that E rest

232 EUPHUES 

seruice, but as for hope bicause I woulde not by any meanes tast one 

dramme thereoff, I will abiure all places of hir abode and loath hir 

company, whose countenaunce I haue so much loued, as for Euphues, 

and there staying his speache, hee flange out of the dores and 

repairing to his lodginge vttered these words. $ 

Ah most dissembling wretch Euphues, 0 counterfayte companion, 

couldest thou vnder the shewe of a stedfast friende cloake the mallice 

of a mortall foe ? vnder the coulour of simplicitie shrowd the Image 

of deceit? Is thy Liuia tourned to my Lucilla, thy loue to my 

louer, thy deuotion to my Sainct? Is this the curtesie of Athens, 10 

the cauillyng of schollers, the craft of Grecians ? Couldest thou not 

remember Philautus that Greece is neuer without some wily Vlisses, 

neuer void of some Synon, neuer to seeke of some deceitfull shifter ? 

Is it not commonly saide of Grecians that crafte commeth to them 

by kinde, that they learne to deceiue in their cradell? Why then 15 

did his pretended curtesie bewitch thee with such credulytie ? shall 

my good will bee the cause of his ill wil ? bicause I was content to 

be his friende, thought he mee meete to be made his foole ? I see 

now that as the fish Scolopidus in the floud Aran's at the waxinge 

of the Moone is as white as the driuen snow, and at the wayning as 20 

blacke as the burnt coale, so Euphues, which at the first encreasing 

of our familyaritie, was very zealous, is nowe at the last cast become 

most faythlesse. But why rather exclaime I not agaynst Lucilla, 

whose wanton lookes caused Euphues to vyolate his plyghted fayth ? 

Ah wretched wenche canst thou be so lyght of loue, as to chaunge 25 

with euery winde ? so vnconstant as to preferre a new louer before 

thine olde friende ? Ah well I wotte that a newe broome sweepeth 

cleane, and a new garment maketh thee leaue off the olde thoughe it 

be fitter, and newe wine causeth thee to forsake the olde though it be 

better, much lyke to the men in the Ilande Scyrum, which pull upp 3° 

the olde tree when they se the young beginne to spring, and not 

vnlike vnto the widow of Lesbos, which changed all hir olde golde 

for new glasse, haue I serued thee three yeares faithfully, and am 

I serued so vnkindely ? shall the fruite of my desire be tourned to 

disdayne ? But vnlesse Euphues had inueigled thee thou haddest 35 

yet bene constant, yea but if Euphues had not seene thee willyng to 

be wonne, he would neuer haue woed thee, but had not Euphues 

4 flang T rest 5 after these add or the like E 2 rest 9 to 1 ] vnto E rest 

27 thine] an Grcst 29 fitte E 2 rest 30 who G rest 31 trees 

£ rest 32 to E* rest


enticed thee with faire wordes, thou wouldest neuer haue loued him, 

but haddest thou not giuen him faire lookes, he would neuer haue 

lyked thee: I, but Euphues gaue the onset, I, but Lucilla gaue 

the occasion, I, but Euphues first brake his minde, I, but Lucilla 

5 first bewrayed hir meaning. Tush why go I about to excuse any of 

them, seeing I haue iuste cause to accuse them both? Neyther 

ought I to dispute which of them hath proffered me the greatest 

villanye, sith that eyther of them hath committed periurie. Yet 

although they haue founde me dull in perceiuing theire falshood, 

10 they shall not finde me slacke in reugging their folly. As for Lucilla 

seeing I meane altogether to forgette hir, I meane also to forgiue hir, 

least in seeking meanes to be reuenged, mine olde desire be renewed. 

Fhilautus hauing thus discoursed with himselfe, began to write to 

Euphues as foiloweth. 

15 A Lthoughhetherto Euphues I haue shrined thee in my heart 

for a trustie friende, I will shunne thee heerafter as a trothles 

foe, and although I cannot see in thee lesse witte then I was wont, 

yet doe I finde lesse honestie, I perceiue at the last (although beeing 

deceiued it be to late) that Muske although it be sweet in the smell, 

20 is sower in the smacke, that the' leafe of the Cedar tree though it be 

faire to be seene, yet the siroppe depriueth sight, that friendshippe 

though it be plighted by shaking the hande, yet it is shaken off by 

fraude of the hearte. But thou hast not much to boaste off, for as 

thou hast wonne a fickle Lady, so hast thou lost a faythfull friende. 

25 How canst thou be secure of hir constancie when thou hast had such 

tryall of hir lyghtenesse ? 

Howe canst thou assure thy selfe that she will be faithfull to thee, 

which hath bene faithlesse to mee? Ah Euphues, let not my 

credulytie be an occasion heereafter for thee to practise the lyke 

30 crueltie. Remember this that yet ther hath neuer bene any faithles 

to his friend, that hath not also bene fruitelesse to his God. But 

I waye this trechery the lesse, in that it commeth from a Grecian in 

whome is no trothe. Thoughe I be to weake to wrastle for a reuenge, 

yet God who permitteth no guyle to be guyltlesse, will shortely 

35 requite this iniury, thoughe Fhilautus haue no pollycie to vnder- 

2 not thou G rest 4 Lncilla A 8 haue F 12 to before be 2 E l 

16 for] as Grest 19 though T rest the om. E 2 rest 22 of before 

the E rest 28 thy E rest 29 for thee heereafter G rest 30 neuer 

hath E2 rest 31 faithlesse E 2 rest to*] vnto F 33 this] the T rest 

33 trouth TMG: troth C: truth E rest

234 EUPHUES 

mine thee, yet thine owne practises will be sufficient to ouerthrow 

thee. 

Couldest thou Euphues for the loue of a fruitelesse pleasure, 

vyolate the league of faythfull friendeshippe ? Diddest thou waye 

more the entising lookes of a lewd wenche, then the entyre loue of 5 

a loyall friende? If thou diddest determine with thy selfe at the 

firste to be false, why diddest thou sweare to bee true ? If to bee 

true, why arte thou false ? If thou wast mynded both falselye and 

forgedlye to deceiue mee, why diddest thou flatter and dissemble 

with mee at the firste ? If to loue me, why doest thou flinche at i0 

the last? If the sacred bands of amitie did delyght thee, why 

diddest thou breake them ? if dislyke thee, why diddest thou prayse 

them ? Dost thou not know that [a perfect friende should be lyke 

the Glazeworme, which shineth most bright in the darke ? or lyke 

the pure Franckencense which smelleth most sweete when it is in z15 

the fire?]or at the leaste not vnlyke to the Damaske Rose which 

is sweeter in the still then on the stalke ? But thou Euphues, dost 

rather resemble the Swallow which in the Summer creepeth vnder 

the eues of euery house, and in the Winter leaueth nothing but 

durte behinde hir, or the humble Bee which hauing sucked honny 20 

out of the faire flower doth leaue it & loath it, or the Spider which 

in the finest webbe doth hang the fairest Fly. Dost thou thinke 

Euphues that thy crafte in betraying me, shall any whit coole my 

courage in reuenging thy villany ? or that a Gentleman of Naples 

will put vpp such an iniury at the hands of a Scholler? And if 25 

I doe, it is not for want of strengthe to maynteyne my iust quarrell, 

but of will which thinketh scorne to gette so vayne a conquest. 

I know that Menelaus for his tenne yeares warre endured ten yeares 

woe, that after all his strife he wan but a Strumpet, that for all his 

trauails he reduced (I cannot say reclaymed) but a straggeler: which 3° 

was as much in my iudgement, as to striue for a broken glasse 

which is good for nothing. I wish thee rather Menelaus care, then 

my selfe his conquest, that thou beeing deluded by Lucilla maist 

rather know what it is to be deceiued, then I hauinge conquered 

thee should prooue what it were to bring backe a dissembler. 35 

Seeing therefore there can no greater reuenge lyghte vppon thee, 

then that as thou hast reaped where an other hath sowen, so an 

1 praises E2F shall E rest 11 sacred] arched E rest, except 

arcted F - 12 dislyke] they dislike E rest 14 Glasse-worme E rest 26 

strengthe] courage G rest 29 wan so all 30 trauayle r-1623: trauell 1631-6


other may thresh yt which thou hast reaped: I will pray that thou 

mayst be measured vnto with the lyke measure that thou hast 

meaten vnto others : that as thou hast thought it no conscience to 

betray me, so others may deeme it no dishonestie to deceiue thee, 

5 that as Lucilla made it a lyght matter to forsweare hir olde friend 

Philautus, so she may make it a mocke to forsake hir new pheere 

Euphues. Which if it come to passe as it is lyke by my compasse, 

then shalt thou see the troubles, & feele the torments which thou 

hast already thrown into the harts and eyes of others. Thus hoping 

10 shortly to see thee as hopelesse, as my selfe is haplesse, I wish my 

wish were as effectually .ended as it is heartely looked for. And so 

I leaue thee. 

* Thine once 

Philautus. 

15 Philautus dispatching a messenger with this letter speedely to 

Euphues, went into the fields to walke ther eythef to digeste his 

choler or chew vppon his melancholy. But Euphues hauing reade 

the contents was well content, setting his talke at naughte and 

aunswering his taunts in these gibing tearmes. 

I 

20 T Remember Philautus how valyauntly Aiax boasted in the feats 

1 of armes, yet Vlysses bare away the armour, and it may be that 

though thou crake of thine own courage, thou mayst easely lose 

the conquest. Dost thou thinke Euphues such a dastarde that 

he is not able to withstande thy courage, or such a dullarde that 

25 he cannot descry thy crafte. Alas good soule. It fareth with thee 

as with the Henne, which when y e Puttocke hath caught hir Chicken 

beginneth to cackle : and thou hauing lost thy louer beginnest 

to prattle. Tush Philautus, I am in this poynt of Euripides his 

minde, who thinkes it lawfull for the desire of a kingdome to trans- 

30 gresse the bounds of honestie, and for the loue of a Lady to violate 

and breake the bands of amitie. 

The friendshippe betweene man and man as it is common so is it 

of course, betweene man and woman, as it is seldome so is it sincere, 

the one proceedeth of the similitude of manners, y e other of the 

3 meeten 1631-6 is, before as G rest 6 it om. F 11 as 1 om. F 

affectually M 16 disgest CGE 1 17 to before chew E 2 rest 19 

aunswered E rest 22 crake so all 30 bounds AE rest', bonds T-G 

31 bonds Trest honesty E 2 rest 32 is it] it is E rest

236 EUPHUES 

sinceritie of the heart: if thou haddest learned the first poynt of 

hauking thou wouldst haue learned to haue held fast,-or the first 

noat of Deskant thou wouldest haue kept thy sol. fa, to thy selfe. 

But thou canst blame me no more of folly in leauing thee to loue 

Lucilla, then thou mayst reproue him of foolishnesse that hauing 5 

a Sparrowe in his hande letteth hir go to catch the Phesaunt, or him 

of vnskilfulnesse that seeing the Heron, leaueth to leauell his shoot 

at the Stockedoue, or that woman of coynesse that hauing a deade 

Rose in hir bosome, throweth it away to gather the fresh Uiolette. 

Loue knoweth no lawes : Did not Iupiier transforme himselfe into 10 

the shape of Amphitrio to imbrace Alcmcena ? Into the forme of a 

Swan to enioye Lozda ? Into a Bull to beguyle Io ? Into a showre 

of golde to winrie Danae ? Did not Neptune chaunge himselfe into 

a Heyfer, a Ramme, a Floude, a Dolphin, onelye for the loue of those 

he lusted after? Did not Apollo conuerte himselfe into a Shepheard, 15 

into a Birde, into a Lyon, for the desire he had to heale hys disease ? 

If the Gods thdughte no scorne to become beastes, to obtayne their 

best beloued, shall Euphues be so nyce in chaunging his coppie to 

gayne his Lady ? No, no: he that cannot dissemble in loue, is not 

worthy to Hue. I am of this minde, that both might and mallice, 20 

deceite and treacherie, all periurie, anye impietie may lawfully be 

committed in loue, which is lawlesse. In that thou arguest Lucilla 

of lyghtnesse, thy will hangs in the lyghte of thy witte: Dost thou 

not know that the weake stomacke if it be cloyed with one dyet 

doth soone surfet ? That the clownes Garlike cannot ease the cour- 25 

tiers disease so well as the pure Treacle ? that farre fette and deare 

bought is good for Ladies ? That Euphues being a more dayntie 

morsell then Philautus, oughte better to be accepted? Tush 

Philautus sette thy heart at: rest, for thy happe willeth thee to giue 

ouer all hope both of my friendship, and hir loue, as for reuenge 30 

thou arte not so able to lende a blowe as I to ward it, neyther more 

venterous to challenge the combatte, then I valyaunt to aunswer the 

quarrel. As Lucilla was caught by frawde so shall she be kept by 

force, and as thou wast too simple to espye my crafte, so I thinke thou 

wilt be too weake to withstande my courage, but if thy reuenge 35 

stande onely vppon thy wish, thou shalt neuer lyue to see my woe, 

or to haue thy wil, and so farewell. 

Euphues. 

I poynt] parte G rest 2 fast] frst A 7 seeth E 8 that 1 ] the G rest 

21 anye] and F 1631, 1636 25 soonest C rest 35 courage, but] 

courage: Crest'


This letter beinge dispatched, Euphues sent it and Philautus read 

it, who disdayning those proud termes, disdayned also to aunswere 

them, being ready to ride with Ferardo. 

Euphues hauing for a space absented himselfe from the house of 

5 Ferardo, bicause he was at home, longed sore to see Lucilla which 

now opportunite offered vnto him, Ferardo being gone agayne to 

Venice with Philautus, but in his absence one Curio a gentleman of 

Naples of lyttle wealth and lesse witte haunted Lucilla hir company, 

& so enchaunted hir, yt Euphues was also cast off with Philautus 

10 which thing being vnknowne to Euphues, caused him y e sooner to 

make his repaire to the presence of his Lady, whom he finding in 

. hir muses began pleasauntly to salute in this manner. 

Mistresse Lucilla, although my long absence might breede your 

iust anger, (for y ft louers desire nothing so much as often meeting) 

15 yet I hope my presence will glissolue your choler (for yt louers are 

soone pleased when of their wishes they be fully possessed.) My 

absence is the rather to be excused in y t your father hath ben alwaies 

at home, whose frownes seemed to threaten my ill fortune, and my 

presence at this present the better to bee accepted in that I haue 

20 made such speedye repayre to your presence. 

Unto whom Lucilla aunswered with this glyeke. 

Truely Euphues you haue miste the cushion, for I was neyther 

angrie with your longe absence, neyther am I well pleased at your 

presence, the one gaue me rather a good hope heereafter neuer to 

35 see you, the other giueth me a greater occasion to abhorre you. 

Euphues being nipped on the head, with a pale countenaunce, as 

though his soule had forsaken his body replyed as followeth. 

If this sodayne change Lucilla, proceede of any desert of mine, 

I am heere not only to aunswere the fact, but also to make amends 

30 for my faulte: if of any new motion or minde to forsake your new 

friend, I am rather to lament your inconstancie then reuenge it, but 

I hope that such hot loue cannot be so soone colde, neyther such 

sure faith, be rewarded with so sodeyne forgetfulnesse. 

Lucilla not ashamed to confesse hir folly, aunswered him with this 

35 frumpe. 

Sir whether your deserts or my desire haue wrought this chaunge, 

it will boote you lyttle to know, neyther doe I craue amends, neyther 

7 this before his TM 12 to salute om. E rest 21 glicke G rest 31 

Jo before reuenge E rest 33 sure om. E rest be om. G rest so] such 

G rest

238 EUPHUES 

feare reuenge, as for feruent loue, you knowe there is no fire so 

hotte but it is quenched with water, neyther affection so strong but 

is weakened with reason, lette this suffice thee that thou know I care 

not for thee. 

In deede (sayd Euphues) to know the cause of your alteration 5 

would boote me lyttle seeing the effect taketh such force. I haue 

hearde that women eyther loue entirely or hate deadly, and seeing 

you haue put me out of doubt of the one, I must needes perswade 

my selfe of the other. This chaunge will cause Philauius to laugh 

me to scorne, & double thy lightnesse in turning so often. Such 10 

was the hope that I conceiued of thy constancie, y t I spared not in 

al places to blaze thy loialtie, but now my rash conceite will proue 

me a Iyer, and thee a light huswife. 

Nay (sayd Lucilld) nowe shalt not thou laugh Philautus to scorne, 

seeing you haue both druncke of one cup, in miserie Euphues it is 15 

a great comfort to haue a companion. I doubt not, but that you wil 

both conspire against me to worke some mischiefe, although I nothing 

feare your mallice : whosoeuer accompteth you a lyar for praising me, 

may also deeme you a letcher for being enamoured of me, and whosoeuer 

iudgeth mee light in forsaking of you, may thincke thee as 20 

lewde in louing of me, for thou that thoughtest it lawfull to deceiue 

thy friende, must take no scorne to be deceiued of thy foe. 

Then I perceiue Lucilla (sayd he) that I was made thy stale, and 

Philautus thy laughinge stocke : whose friendship (I must confesse 

in deede) I haue refused to obteine thy fauour: and sithens an other 25 

hath won that we both haue lost, I am content for my part, neyther 

ought I to be grieued seing thou art fickle. 

Certes Euphues (said Lucilld) you spend your winde in wast for 

your welcome is but small, & your chere is like to be lesse, fancie 

giueth no reason of his chaunge neither wil be c6trolled for any 30 

choice, this is therfore to warne you, yt from hencefoorth you 

neither sollicite this suite neither offer any way your seruice, I haue 

chosen one (I must needs confesse) neither to be compared to 

Philautus in wealth, nor to thee in wit, neither in birth to the 

worst of you both, I thinck God gaue it me for a iust plague, 35 

for renouncing Philautus, & choosing thee, and sithens I am an 

I a before reuenge E rest 3 it before is C rest knowest E rest 

10 doubt E rest 14 thou not T rest 15 drunke both E rest 16 a 1 

om. 7-1623 18 you] thee E rest 25 sithence E2-1613: since 1617 rest 

30 his] her Q rest 32 neither 1 ] neuer G rest 36 for] in G rest sithens 

AE l : sithence T-GE2 rest


ensample to all women of lightnesse, I am lyke also to be a myrrour 

to them all of vnhappinesse, which ill lucke I must take by so much 

the more patiently, by howe much the more I acknowledge my selfe 

to haue deserued it worthely. Well Lucilla (aunswered Euphues) 

5 this case breedeth my sorrowe the more, in that it is so sodeine, and 

by so much the more I lament it, by howe muche the lesse I looked 

for it. In that my welcome is so colde and my cheere so simple, it 

nothing toucheth me, seeinge your furye is so hotte, and my misfortune 

so greate, that I am neither wyllinge to receiue it, nor you to 

10 bestowe it: if tract of time, or want of tryall had caused this Metamorphosis 

my griefe had bene more tollerable, and your fleetinge more 

excusable, but comming in a moment vndeserued, vnlooked for, 

vnthoughte off, it encreaseth my sorrowe and thy shame. 

Euphues (quoth shee) you make a longe haruest for a little corne, 

15 and angle for the fishe that is already caught. Curio, yea, Curio, is 

he that hath my loue at his pleasure, and shall also haue my life at 

his commaundement, and although you deeme him vnworthy to 

enioye that which earst you accompted no wight worthy to embrace, 

yet seeinge I esteeme him more worth then any, he is to be reputed 

20 as chiefe. The Wolfe chooseth him for hir make, that hath or doth 

endure most trauaile for hir sake. Venus was content to take the 

black Smith with his powlt foot. Cornelia here in Naples disdained 

not to loue a rude Miller. As for chaunging, did not Helen y e 

pearle of Greece thy countriwoman first take Menelaus, then Theseus, 

25 and last of all Paris ? if brute beastes giue vs ensamples that those 

are most to be lyked, of whome we are best beloued, or if the Princesse 

of beautye Venus, and hir hey res Helen, and Cornelia, she we 

that our affection standeth on our free wyll: then am I rather to 

bee excused then accused. Therefore good Euphues bee as merrye 

30 as you maye bee, for time maye so tourne that once agayne you 

maye bee. 

Nay Lucilla (sayd he) my haruest shall cease, seeing others haue 

reaped my corne, as for anglinge for the fishe that is alreadye caught, 

that were but meere folly. But in my minde if you bee a fishe you 

35 are either an Ele which as soone as one hathe holde of hir taile, will 

slippe out of his hand, or else a Mynnowe which will be nibbling 

at .euery baite but neuer biting: But what fishe soeuer you bee you 

2 all them E rest 5 cause EF: change 1613 rest 7 not before for 

Erest 16 his om. F ao mate F1617 rest 21 trauell E rest 23 

y e ] yt M: that T: the C rest 33 as om, MC 35 of] on T rest

240 EUPHUES 

haue made both mee and Philautus to swallow a Gudgen. If Curio 

bee the person, I would neither wishe thee a greater plague, nor him 

a deadlyer poyson. I for my part thincke him worthy of thee, and 

thou vnworthy of him, for although hee bee in bodye deformed, 

in minde foolishe, an innocent borne, a begger by misfortune, yet 5 

doth hee deserue a better then thy selfe, whose corrupt manners haue 

staynde thy heauenly hewe, whose light behauiour hath dimmed 

the lightes of thy beautie, whose vnconstant mynde hath betrayed 

the innocencie of so many a Gentleman. And in that you bringe 

in the example of a beast to confirme your folly, you shewe therein 10 

your beastly disposition, which is readie to followe suche beastiinesse. 

But Venus played false: and what for that ? seeinge hir lightnesse 

serueth for an example, I woulde wishe thou mightest trye hir punishment 

for a reward, that beeing openly taken in an yron net al the 

world might iudge whether thou be fish or flesh, and certes in my 15 

minde no angle will holde thee, it must be a net. Cornelia loued 

a Miller, and thou a miser, can hir folly excuse thy fault ? Helen 

of Greece my countriewoman borne, but thine by profession, chaunged 

and rechaunged at hir pleasure I graunte. Shall the lewdenesse of 

others animate thee in thy lightnesse ? why then dost thou not haunt 20 

the stewes bicause Lais frequented them ? why doest thou not loue 

a Bull seeing Pasiphae loued one ? why art thou not enamoured of thy 

father knowing yt Mirha was so incensed ? these are set down that 

we viewing their incontinencie, should flye y e like impudencie, not 

follow the like excesse, neither can they excuse thee of any incon- 25 

stancie. Merrie I will be as I may, but if I may heereafter as thou 

meanest, I will not, and therefore farewell Lucilla, the most inconstant 

that euer was nursed in Naples, farewell Naples the most 

cursed towne in all Italy, and women all farewell. 

Euphues hauing thus gyuen hir his last farewell, yet beeing solitary 30 

began a fresh to recount his sorrow on this manner. 

Ah Euphues into what a quandarie art thou brought? in what 

sodeine misfortune art thou wrapped ? it is like to fare with thee as 

with the Eagle, which dyeth neither for age, nor with sickenesse, but 

wyth famine, for although thy stomacke hunger yet thy heart will 35 

not suffer thee to eate. And why shouldest thou torment thy selfe 

for one in whome is neyther fayth nor feruencie ? O the counterfaite 

loue of women. Oh inconstant sex. I haue lost Philautus, I haue 

6 hath CGEF 13 serueth AT: serued Mrest 31 in E rest 32 a 

quandarie] misfortune T rest 33 miserye T rest 37 the om. C rest


lost Lucilla, I haue lost that which I shall hardlye finde againe, 

a faythfull friende. A foolishe Euphues, why diddest thou leaue 

Athens the nourse of wisdome, to inhabite Naples the nourisher of 

wantonnesse? Had it not bene better for thee to haue eaten salt 

5 with the Philosophers in Greece, then sugar with the courtiers of Italy ? 

But behold the course of youth which alwayes inclyneth to pleasure, 

I forsooke mine olde companions to search for new friends, I reiected 

the graue and fatherly counsayle of Eubulus, to follow the brainesicke 

humor of mine owne will. I addicted my selfe wholy to the 

10 seruice of women to spende my lyfe in the lappes of Ladyes, my 

lands in maintenance of brauerie, my witte in the vanities of idle 

Sonnets. I had thought that women had bene as we men, that is 

true, faithfull, zealous, constant, but I perceiue they be rather woe 

vnto men, by their falshood, gelousie, inconstancie. I was halfe 

15 perswaded that they were made of the perfection of men, & would 

be comforters, but now I see they haue tasted of the infection of the 

Serpent, and will be corasiues. The Phisition saythe it is daungerous 

to minister Phisicke vnto the patient that hath a colde stomacke 

and a hotte lyuer, least in giuing warmth to the one he inflame the 

20 other, so verely it is harde to deale with a woman whose wordes 

seeme feruent, whose heart is congealed into harde yce, least trusting 

their outwarde talke, he be betraied with their inwarde trechery. I 

will to Athens ther to tosse my bookes, no more in Naples to lyue 

with faire lookes. I will so frame my selfe as al youth heereafter 

25 shal rather reioice to se mine amendemSt then be animated to 

follow my former lyfe. Philosophic, Phisicke, Diuinitie, shal be my 

studie. O y e hidden secrets of Nature, the expresse image of moral 1 

vertues, the equall ballaunce of Iustice, the medicines to heale all 

diseases, how they beginne to delyght me. The Axiomaes of Art- 

30 stotle, the Maxims of Justinian, the Aphorismes of Galen, haue 

sodaynelye made such a breache into my minde that I seeme onely 

to desire them which did onely earst detest them. If witte be 

employed in the honest study of learning what thing so pretious as 

witte ? if in the idle trade of loue what thing more pestilent then 

35 witte ? The proofe of late hath bene verefied in me, whome nature 

hath endued with a lyttle witte, which I haue abused with an obstinate 

will, most true it is that the thing y e better it is the greater is 

2 A] Ah C rest 13 and before constant E rest 14 and inconstancye C rest 

23 tosse so all 25 my E rest 29 Aximoaes G: Axiomas 1631: 

Axiomes 1636 30 Maxinis A 33 in] to E rest 

BOND 1 

R

242 EUPHUES 

the abuse, and that ther is nothing but through the mallice of man 

may be abused. 

Doth not y e fire (an element so necessarie that without it man 

cannot lyue) as well burne y e house as burne in the house if it be 

abused ? Doth not Treacle as wel poyson as helpe if it be taken 5 

out of time ? Doth not wine if it be immoderately taken kill the 

stomacke, enflame the lyuer, murther the droncken? Doth not 

Phisicke destroy if it be not well tempred ? Doth not law accuse if 

it be not ryghtly interpreted ? Doth not diuinitie condemne if it be 

not faythfully construed? Is not poyson taken out of the Honny- I10 

suckle by the Spider, venime out of the Rose by the Canker, dunge 

out of the Maple tree by the Scorpion? Euen so the greatest 

wickednesse is drawne out of the greatest wit, if it bee abused by will, 

or entangled with the world, or inueigled with women. 

But seeinge I see mine owne impietie, I wyll endeuoure my selfe to 15 

amende all that is paste, and to be a myrrour of godlynes heereafter. 

The Rose though a lyttle it be eaten with the Canker yet beeing 

distilled yeeldeth sweete water, the yron thoughe fretted with the 

ruste yet beeing burnte in the fire shyneth brighter, and witte 

although it hath bene eaten with the canker of his owne conceite, 20 

and fretted with the rust of vaine loue, yet beeinge purified in the 

still of wisedome, and tryed in the fire of zeale, will shine bright and 

smell sweete in the nosethrilles of all young nouises. 

As therefore I gaue a farewell to Lucilla, a farewell to Naples, 

a farewell to woemen, so now doe I giue a farewell to the worlde, 25 

meaning rather to macerate my selfe with melancholye then pine in 

follye, rather choosinge to dye in my studye amiddest my bookes, 

then to courte it in Italy, in the company of Ladyes. 

[Euphues hauing thus debated with himselfe, went to his bed, ther 

either w t sleepe to deceiue his fancye, or with musing to renue his ill 30 

fortune, or recant his olde follyes. 

But] It happened immediatly Ferardo to retourne home, who 

hearing this straunge euent was not a lyttle amazed, and was nowe 

more readye to exhorte Lucilla from the loue of Curio, then before 

to the lykinge of Philautus. Therefore in all haste, with watrye 35 

eyes, and a wofull heart, began on this manner to reason with his 

daughter. 

2 it before may E2 rest 7 murther] mischiefe Trest 14 inueig- A 

18 the 2 om. E rest 19 bright E rest 21 fretted] fetteTed EF: festered 

1613 rest 23 all om. E rest 25 I doe CGE 1 : doe om. E 2 rest 26 selfe] 

lyfe E rest 29-32 Euphues... But (3 lines) added Trest 31 olde] owne F


Lucilla (daughter I am ashamed to call thee, seeing thou hast 

neyther care of thy fathers tender affection, nor of thine owne credite) 

what sprite hath enchaunted thy spirite that euery minute thou 

alterest thy minde? I had thought that my hoary haires should 

5 haue found comforte by thy golden lockes, and my rotten age 

greate ease by thy rype yeares. But alas I see in thee neyther witte 

to order thy doinges neyther will to frame thy selfe to discretion, 

neither the nature of a child, neyther the nurture of a mayden, 

neyther (I cannot without teares speake it) any regarde of thine 

10 honour, neyther any care of thine honestie. 

I am nowe enforced to remember thy mothers deathe, who I 

thincke was a Prophetesse in hir lyfe, for oftentimes shee woulde 

saye that thou haddest more beautie then was conuenient for one 

that shoulde bee honeste, and more cockering then was meete for 

15 one that shoulde bee a Matrone. 

Woulde I had neuer lyued to bee so olde or thou to bee so obstinate, 

eyther woulde I had dyed in my youthe in the courte, or thou 

in thy cradle, I woulde to God that eyther I had neuer bene borne, 

or thou neuer bredde. Is this the comfort that the parent reapeth 

20 for all his care ? Is obstinacie payed for obedience, stubbernnesse 

rendred for duetie, mallitious desperatenesse, for filiall feare ? I 

perceiue now that the wise Paynter saw more then y e foolish parent 

can, who paynted loue going downeward, saying it might well 

descend, but ascende it coulde neuer. Danaus whome they reporte 

25 to bee the father of fiftie children, had amonge them all but one 

that disobeyed him in a thinge most dishonest, but I that am father 

to one more then I would be although one be all, haue that one 

most disobedient to me in a request lawfull and reasonable. If 

Danaus seeing but one of his daughters without awe became him- 

3° selfe without mercie, what shall Ferardo doe in this case who hath 

one and all most vnnaturall to him in a most iust cause? Shall 

Curio enioy y e fruite of my trauailes, possesse the benefite of my 

labours, enherit the patrimony of mine auncestors, who hath neither 

wisedome to increase the, nor wit to keepe the" ? wilt thou Lucilla 

35 bestow thy self on such an one as hath neither comlines in his body, 

nor knowledge in his minde, nor credite in his countrey. Oh 

I would thou haddest eyther bene euer faithfull to Philautus, or 

neuer faithlesse to Euphues,or would. thou wouldest be more fickle to 

3 sprite] spirite C rest 4 hadem. C rest 8 nurture] nature £ rest 

9 of] to £ rest 32 trauels 1631-6' 38 most T-E 

R 2

244 

EUPHUES 

Curio, As thy beautie hath made thee blaze of Italy, so will thy 

lyghtnes make thee the bye word of y e world. O Lucilla, Luciila, 

woulde thou wert lesse fayre or more fortunate, eyther of lesse honour 

or greater honestie ? eyther better minded, or soone buryed. Shall 

thine olde father lyue to see thee match with a younge foole ? shall 5 

my kinde hearte be rewarded with such vnkinde hate ? Ah Lucilla 

thou knowest not the care of a father, nor the duetie of a childe, and 

as farre art thou from pietie, as I from crueltie. 

Nature will not permitte me to disherit my daughter, and yet it 

will suffer thee to dishonour thy father. Affection causeth me to 10 

wishe thy life, and shall it entice thee to procure my death ? It is 

mine onely comfort to see thee florishe in thy youth, and is it thine, 

to see me fade in mine age ? to conclude, I desire to Hue to see thee 

prosper, & thou to see me perish. But why cast I the effect of this 

vnnaturalnesse in thy teeth, seeing I my selfe was the cause? I 15 

made thee a wanton and thou hast made mee a foole, I brought thee 

vpp lyke a cockney, and thou hast handled mee lyke a cockescombe 

(I speake it to mine owne shame) I made more of thee then became 

a Father, & thou lesse of me then beseemed a childe. And shal my 

louing care be cause of thy wicked crueltie ? yea, yea, I am not the 20 

first that hath bene too carefull, nor the last that shall bee handled 

so vnkindely, it is common to see Fathers too fonde, and children 

to frowarde. Well Lucilla the teares which thou seest trickle downe 

my cheekes and the droppes of bloude (whiche thou canst not see) 

that fall from my heart, enforce me to make an ende of my talke, 25 

and if thou haue any duetie of a childe, or care of a friende, or 

courtesie of a straunger, or feelinge of a Christian, or humanitie of 

a reasonable creature, then release thy Father of gryefe, and acquite 

thy selfe of vngratefulnesse, otherwyse thou shake but hasten my 

deathe, and encrease thine owne defame, which if thou doe the gaine 30 

is mine, and the losse thine, and both infinite. 

Lucilla eyther so bewitched that shee coulde not relente or so 

wicked that shee woulde not yelde to hir Fathers request aunswered 

him on this manner. 

Deere Father as you woulde haue mee to shewe the duetie of a 35 

childe, so ought you to shewe the care of a parent, and as the one 

1 the before blaze Trest 3 wast E rest. or] and C-F 8 farre 

art thou] farre art G: far thou art G rest 12 it is C rest 14 this! his 

F1613 17 cockney] Coakes E2-1623 : Cokes 1631-6 24 the] my Trest 

27 humilitie E rest 30 thine] thy Frest 33 could F-1623 36 you 

ought GE and] for T rest


standeth in obedience so the other is grounded vpon reason. You 

would haue me as I owe duetie to you to leaue Curio, and I desire 

you as you owe mee any loue, that you suffer me to enioye him. If 

you accuse mee of vnnaturalnesse in that I yelde not to your request, 

5 I am also to condemne you of vnkindenesse, in that you graunt not 

my petition. You obiecte I knowe not what to Curio, but it is the 

eye of the maister that fatteth the horse, and the loue of the woman, 

that maketh the man. To giue reason for fancie were to weighe the 

fire, and measure the winde. If therefore my delight bee the cause 

10 of your death, I thincke my sorrowe would bee an occasion of your 

solace. And if you be angrye bicause I am pleased, certes I deeme 

you woulde be content if I were deceased : which if it be so that my 

pleasure breede your paine, and mine annoy your ioye, I may well 

say that you are an vnkinde Father, and I an vnfortunate childe. 

15 But good Father either content your selfe wyth my choice, or let me 

stand to the maine chaunce, otherwise the griefe will be mine, and 

the fault yours and both vntollerable. 

Ferardo seeinge his daughter, to haue neither regarde of hir owne 

honour nor his request, conceyued such an inwarde gryefe, that in 

20 short space hee dyed, leauing Lucilla the onely heire of his landes, 

and Curio to possesse them: but what ende came of hir, seeing 

it is nothing incident to the history of Euphues, it were superfluous 

to insert it, and so incredible that all women would rather wonder 

at it then beleeue it, which euent beeing so strauge, I had rather 

25 leaue them in a muse what it should bee, then in a maze in telling 

what it was. 

Philautus hauing intelligence of Euphues his successe, and the 

falshoode of Lucilla, although he began to reioyGe at the miserye 

of his fellowe, yet seeinge hir ficklenesse coulde not but lamente hir 

30 follye, and pittie his friendes misfortune. Thinckinge that the lightnesse 

of Lucilla enticed Euphues to so great liking. 

Euphues and Philautus hauing conference betweene themselues, 

castinge discourtesie in the teeth each of the other, but chiefly noting 

disloyaltie in the demeanor of Lucilla, after much talke renewed 

35 their olde friendship both abandoning Lucilla as most abhominable. 

Philautus was earnest to haue Euphues tarrie in Naples, and Euphues 

desirous to haue Philautus_ to Athens, but the one was so addicted 

3 good before loue E rest 6 to before my E rest 10 an om. E2-1613 : 

the 1617 rest 12 diseased E 2 rest,perhaps rightly; cf.pp, 230, / 27, 236, /. 16 

17 intolerable G rest 18 owne om. C rest 33 of] to E rest 35 

abominable 1617, 1631, 1636

246 EUPHUES 

to the court, the other so wedded to the vniuersitie, that each refused 

y* offer of the other, yet this they agreed betweene themselues that 

though their bodyes were by distaunce of place seuered, yet the 

coniunction of their mindes shoulde neither bee seperated, by the 

length of time, nor alienated by chaunge of soyle. I for my parte 5 

sayde Euphues to confirme thys league gyue thee my hand and my 

heart, and so likewise did Philautus, and so shaking handes they 

bid each other farewell. 

Euphues to the intent hee might bridell the ouerlashing affections 

of Philautus, conuayed into his studye, a certeyne pamphlet which 10" 

hee termed a coolinge carde for Philautus, yet generallye to be 

applyed to all louers which I haue inserted as follbweth. 

M 

F A cooling Carde for Philautus 

and all fond louers. 

Using with my selfe beeing idle howe I myght be well imployed 15 

(friend Philautus) I could finde nothing either more fitte to 

continue our friendshippe, or of greater force to dissolue our follye, 

then to write a remedy for that which many iudge past cure, for loue 

{Philautus) with y e which I haue bene so tormented, that I haue lost 

my time, thou so troubled that thou hast forgot reason, both so 20 

mangled with repulse, inueigled by deceite, and almost murthered 

by dys*dain, that I can neither remember our miseries without griefe, 

nor redresse our mishaps without groanes. How wantonly, yea, and 

howe willingly haue wee abused our golden time, and mispent our 

gotten treasure ? How curious were we to please our Lady, how 25 

carelesse to displease our Lord ? How deuoute in seruing our Goddesse, 

howe desperate in forgetting our God ? Ah my Philautus if 

the wasting of our money might not dehort vs, yet the wounding of 

our mindes should deterre vs, if reason might nothing perswade vs 

to wisdome, yet shame should prouoke vs to wyt. If Lucilla reade 30 

this trifle, she will straight proclaime Euphues for a traytour, and 

seeing mee tourne my tippet will either shut mee out for a Wrangler, 

or cast me off for a Wiredrawer : either conuince mee of mallice in 

bewraying their sleightes, or condemne me of mischiefs in arming 

5 or C rest 8 bid] did bidde GE 15 well be C rest 18 pastsure G 

22 miserie E rest 28 dehort so all 34 slights EF

EUPHUES TO PHILAUTUS 247 

younge men against fleetinge minions. And what then,? Though 

Curio bee as hotte as a toast, yet Euphues is as colde as a clock, 

though he be a Cocke of the game, yet Euphues is content to bee 

crauen and crye creeke, though Curio bee olde huddle and twange, 

5 ipse, hee, yet Euphues had rather shrinke in the weeting, then wast 

in the wearing. I knowe Curio to be Steele to the backe, standerd 

bearer in Venus campe, sworne to the crewe, true to the crowne, 

knight marshal to Cupid, and heire apparaunt to his kingdome. 

But by that time that he hath eaten but one bushell of salt wyth 

10 Lucilla, he shall taste tenne quarters of sorrow in his loue, then shall 

he finde for euery pynte of honnye a gallon of gall, for euerye dramme 

of pleasure, an ounce of payne, for euery inche of mirth, an ell of 

moane. And yet Philautus if there be any man in despayre to obtayne 

his purpose, or so obstinate in his opinion that hauing lost his 

15 fredome by folly, would also lose his lyfe for loue, lette him repaire 

hether, and hee shall reape suche profite, as will eyther quenche his 

flames or asswage his furye, eyther cause him to renounce his Ladye 

as most pernicious, or redeeme his lybertie as most pretious. Come 

therefore to me all ye louers that haue bene deceiued by fancie, the 

ao glasse of pestilence, or deluded by woemen the gate to perdition: be 

as earnest to seeke a medicine, as you wer eager to runne into a mischiefe 

: y e earth bringeth forth as well Endyue to delyght the people, 

as Hemlocke to endaunger the patient, as well the Rose to distill as 

the Nettle to sting, as well the Bee to giue honny, as the Spider to 

25 yeeld poyson. 

If my lewde lyfe Gentlemen haue giuen you offence, lette my good 

counsayle make amendes, if by my folly any be allured to lust, let 

them by my repentaunce be drawne to continencie. Achilles speare 

could as well heale as hurte, the Scorpion though he sting, yet hee 

30 stints y e paine, though y e hearb Nerius poyson y e Sheepe, yet is it 

a remedie to man agaynst poyson, though I haue infected some by 

example, yet I hope I shall comforte many by repentaunce. Whatsoeuer 

I speake to men, the same also I speke to women, I meane 

not to runne with the Hare and holde with the Hounde, to carrye 

35 fire in the one hande and water in the other, neyther to flatter men 

as altogether faultlesse, neyther to fall out with woemen as altogether 

2 as a clock ATC-1613: as clocked: as a clod 1617-36 3 be om. G 

4 a before crauen E rest creake T rest twang T rest 5 

wetting Trest 7 in] to T rest 20 to] of E rest 21 a 2 om. £ rest 

26 good om. E rest 27 amendes] you amends E rest 30 it om. ATM, 

G rest read it is

248 EUPHUES 

guyltie, for as I am not minded to picke a thancke with the one, so 

am I not determined to picke a quarrell with the other, if women be 

not peruerse they shall reape profite, by remedye of pleasure. If 

Phillis were now to take counsayle, shee would not be so foolish 

to hang hir selfe, neyther Dido so fonde to dye for Aeneas, neyther 5 

Pasiphae so monstrous to loue a Bull, nor Phedra so vnnaturall to 

be enamoured of hir sonne. 

This is therefore to admonish all young Impes and nouises in loue, 

not to blow the coales of fancie wyth desire, but to quench them 

with disdayne. When loue tickleth thee decline it lest it stiffle 10 

thee, rather fast then surfette, rather starue then striue to exceede. 

Though the beginning of loue bring delyght, the ende bringeth destruction. 

' For as the first draught of wine doth comfort the 

stomacke, the seconde inflame the lyuer, the thirde fume into the 

heade, so [the first sippe of loue is pleasaunt, the seconde perilous, 15 

the thirde pestilent. : If thou perceiue thy selfe to be entised with 

their wanton glaunces, or allured with their wicked guyles, eyther 

enchaQted with their beautie or enamoured with their brauerie, enter 

with thy selfe into this meditation. What shall I gayne if I obtayne 

my purpose ? nay rather what shall I loose in winning my pleasure ? 20 

If my Lady yeelde to be my louer is it not lykely she will bee an 

others lemman ? and if she be a modest matrone my labour is lost. 

This therfore remayneth that eyther I must pine in cares, or perish 

with curses. 

' If she be chaste then is she coy, if lyght then is shee impudent, if 25 

a graue Matrone, who can woe hir ? if a lewde minion, who woulde 

wedde hir ? if one of the Uestall Uirgins, they haue vowed virginitie, 

if one of Venus courte they haue vowed dishonestie. If I loue one 

that is fayre, it will kindle gelousie, if one that is fowle it will conuerte 

me into phrensie. If fertile to beare children my care is increased, 30 

if barren my curse is augmented. If honest I shall feare hir death, 

if immodest, I shall be weary of hir lyfe. 

To what ende then shall I lyue in loue, seeing alwayes it is a lyfe 

more to be feared then death? for all my time wasted in sighes, and 

worne in sobbes, for all my treasure spente on Iewells, and spilte in 35 

iollytie, what recompence shall I reape besides repentaunce ? What 

other rewarde shall I haue then reproch ? What other solace then 

7 of] to loue E rest 11 striue] straine E 3 rest 19 I shall G 31 

course E: griefe Frest shall om. E rest 32 hir] my G rest 35 

spilte] spent EF


endles shame ? But happely thou wilt say if I refuse their courtesie 

I shal be accopted a Mecocke, a Milkesoppe, taunted and retaunted, 

with check and checkemate, flowted and reflowted with intolerable 

glee. 

5 Alas fonde foole arte thou so pinned to theire sleeues that thou 

regardest more their babble then thine owne blisse, more their frupes 

then thine own welfare? Wilt thou resemble the kinde Spaniell, 

which the more he is beaten the fonder he is, or the foolish Eiesse, 

which will neuer away ? Dost thou not knowe that woemen deeme 

10 none valyaunt, vnlesse he be too venturous ? That they accompte 

one a dastarde, if he be not desperate, a pinche penny, if he be not 

prodigall, if silente a sotte, if full of wordes a foole ? Peruersly do 

they alwayes thinck of their louers, and talke of them scornfully, 

iudging all to be clownes, which be no courtiers, and all to be 

15 pinglers, that be not coursers. 

Seeing therefore the very blossome of loue is sower, the budde 

cannot be sweete. In time preuent daunger, least vntimelye thou 

runne into a thousande perrills. Searche the wounde while it is 

greene, to late commeth the salue when the sore festereth, and the 

20 medicine bringeth dubble care, when the maladye is past cure. 

Beware of delayes. What lesse then the grayne of Mustardeseede, 

in time almost what thing is greater then the stalke thereoff ? The 

slender twigge groweth to a stately tree, and that which with the 

hand might easely haue bene pulled upp, will hardly with the axe 

25 be hewen downe. The least sparke, if it bee not quenched will 

burst into a flame, the least Moth in time eateth the thickest clothe, 

and I haue reade that in a shorte space, there was a Towne in Spayne 

vndermined with Connyes, in Thessalia, with Mowles, with Frogges 

in Fraunce, in Africa with Flyes. If these silly Wormes in tracte of 

30 time ouerthrowe so statelye Townes, how much more will loue, which 

creepeth secretly into the minde, (as the rust doth into the yron and 

is not perceiued) consume the body, yea and confound the soule. 

Defer not from houre to day, from day to month, from month to 

yeare, and alwayes remayne in misery. 

35 He that to day is not willyng will to morrowe bee more wilfull. 

But alas it is no lesse common then lamentable to beholde the 

tottering estate of louers, who thinke by delayes to preuente daungers, 

8 Eiesse A-1613 : Eiesse 1617 rest. Qy. ?Giesse as Landmann 14 be no] 

be not G: are not E rest 15 be] are 1617 rest 16 bosome GE 1 27 

a 1 om. E 2 rest 28 Cunnies G: Conies 1617 rest 30 ouerthrewe G rest 

36 is no more G: is more E rest

250 EUPHUES 

with oyle to quench fire, with smoke to cleare the eye sight. They 

flatter themselues with a faynting farewell, deferring euer vntill to 

morrow, when as their morrow doth alwayes encrese their sorrow. 

Lette neyther their amyable countenances, neyther their painted 

protestacions, neyther their deceitfull promises, allure thee to delaies. 5 

Thinke this with thy selfe, that the sweete songes of Calipso, were 

subtill snares to entice Vlysses, that the Crabbe then catcheth the 

Oyster, when the Sunne shineth, that Hiena, when she speaketh lyke 

a man deuiseth most mischiefe, y women when they be most pleasaunt, 

pretend most trecherie. 10 

Follow Alexander which hearing the commendation and singular 

comelynesse of the wife of Darius, so couragiously withstood the 

assaultes of fancie, that hee would not so much as take a viewe of 

hir beautie : Imitate Cyrus, a king indued with such continencie, 

y hee loathed to looke on the heauenly hewe of Panthea, and when 15 

Araspus tolde him that she excelled all mortall wightes in amiable 

shewe, by so much the more (sayde Cyrus) I ought to absteine from 

hir sight, for if I follow thy counsayle in going to hir, it maye bee, 

I shall desire to continue with hir, and by my lyght affection, neglect 

my serious affaires. Learne of Romulus to refraine from wine, be it 20 

neuer so delicate, of Agesilaus to despise costly apparell, be it neuer 

so curious, of Diogenes to detest women bee they neuer so comely. 

Hee that toucheth pitche shall be defiled, the sore eye infecteth the 

sounde, the societie with women breedeth securitie in the souie, and 

maketh all the sences sencelesse. Moreouer take this counsaile, as 25 

an article of thy Creede, which I meane to follow as the chiefe argument 

of my faith, that idlenes is the onely nourse and nourisher of 

sensual appetite, the sole maintenance of youthfull affection, the first 

shaft that Cupide shooteth into the hot liuer of a heedlesse louer. 

I woulde to God I were not able to finde this for a truth, by mine 3° 

owne tryall, & I would the example of others idlenesse had caused me 

rather to auoid y fault, then experience of mine owne folly. Howe 

dissolute haue I bene in striuing against good counsayle, howe resolute 

in standing in mine owne conceite ? howe forwarde to wickednesse, 

howe frowarde to wisedome, howe wanton with too much cocker- 35 

inge, howe waywarde in hearing correction? Neyther was I much 

vnlike these Abbaie lubbers in my lyfe (though farre vnlike them in 

2 euer] ouer G rest 3 their 2 ] thy E l 4 countenaunce G rest 10 

mischiefe G rest 15 heauenly om. E rest 17 refraine G rest "20 

abstain G rest 28 youthly G rest 29 into A T: in M rest '37 those 

1613 rest thoughtE

EUPHUES TO PHILAUTUS • 251 

beliefe) which laboured till they were colde, eat til they sweate, and 

lay in bed till their boanes aked. Heereof commeth it gentlemen, 

that loue creepeth into the minde by priuie crafte, and keepeth his 

holde by maine courage. 

5 The man beeing idle the minde is apte to all vncleanenesse, the 

minde being voide of exercise the man is voide of honestie. Doth 

not the rust fret the hardest yron if it bee not vsed ? Doth not the 

Moath eate the finest garment, if it bee not worne? Doth not 

Mosse growe on the smothest stone if it be not stirred ? Doth 

10 not impietie infect the wisest wit, if it be giuen to idlenesse? Is 

not the standinge water sooner frosen then the running streame? 

Is not he that sitteth more subiect to sleepe then he that walketh ? 

Doth not common experience make this common vnto vs, that the 

fattest grounde bringeth foorth nothing but weedes if it be not well 

15 tilled? That the sharpest wit enclineth onely to wickednesse, if it bee 

not exercised ? Is it not true which Seneca reporteth, that as to much 

bendinge breaketh the bowe, so to much remission' spoyleth the 

minde ? Besides this immoderate sleepe, immodest play, vnsatiable 

swilling of wine, doth so weaken the sences, and bewitch the soule, 

20 that before we feele the motion of loue, wee are resolued into lust. 

Eschewe idlenesse my Philautus, so shalt thou easily vnbende the 

bowe and quenche the brandes of Cupide. Loue giues place to 

laboure, laboure and thou shalt neuer loue. Cupide is a craftie childe 

following those at an ynche that studye pleasure, and flyinge those 

25 swyftlye that take paines. Bende thy minde to the lawe whereby 

thou mayst haue vnderstanding of olde and auncient customes, 

defende thy clientes, enriche thy cofers, and carry credite in thy 

Countrey. If lawe seeme loathsome vnto thee, searche the secretes 

of phisicke, whereby thou maist know the hidden natures of hearbes, 

30 whereby thou maiste gather profite to thy purse, and pleasure to thy 

minde. What can be more exquisite in humaine affaires then for 

euery feuer bee it neuer so hot, for euery palsey be it neuer so colde, 

for euery infection be it neuer so straunge, to giue a remedy ? The 

olde verse standeth as yet in his olde vertue: That Galen gyueth 

35 goods, Justinian honors. If thou bee so nice that thou canst no 

waye brooke the practise of Phisicke, or so vnwise that thou wilt not 

beate thy braynes about the institutes of the lawe, conferre all thy 

study all thy time, all thy treasure to the attayning of the sacred and 

1 who G rest 15 it om. A 20 into] to E rest 26 custome CG 

29 nature £ rest 31 exquisite to EF:requisite to 1613 rest

252 EUPHUES 

sincere knowledge of diuinitie, by this maist thou bridle thine incontinencie, 

raine thine affections, restrayne thy lust. Heere shalt 

thou beholde as it were in a glasse, that all the glorye of man is as 

the grasse, that all thinges vnder heauen are but vaine, that our lyfe 

is but a shadowe, a warfare, a pilgrimage, a vapor, a bubble, a blast, 5 

of such shortnesse that Dauid sayth it is but a spanne long, of such 

sharpnesse, that lob noteth it replenished with all miseries, of suche 

vncerteintie, that we are no sooner borne, but wee are subiecte to 

death, the one foote no sooner on the grounde, but the other ready 

to slippe into the graue. Heere shalt thou finde ease for thy burden 10 

of sinne, comforte for the conscience pined wyth vanitie, mercy for 

thine offences by the martirdome of thy sweete Sauiour. By this 

thou shalt be able to instruct those that be weake, to confute those 

that bee obstinate, to confounde those that be erronious, to confirme 

the faythfull, to comfort the desperate, to cutte off the presumptious, 15 

to saue thine owne soule by thy sure faith, and edifie the hearts of 

many by thy sound doctrine. If this seeme to straight a dyet for 

thy straininge disease, or to holy a profession, for so hollow a person, 

then employ thy selfe to martial feats, to iusts, to turrnayes, yea, to 

al tormets rather then to loiter in loue, & spend thy life in y e laps 20 

of Ladyes : what more monstrous can there be, then to see a younge 

man abuse those giftes to his owne shame which God hath giuen 

him for his owne preferment ? What greater infamye, then to conferre 

the sharpe wit to y e making of lewde Sonnets, to the idolatrous 

worshipping of their Ladies, to the vaine delights of fancie, 25 

to all kinde of vice as it were against kinde & course of nature ? 

Is it not folly to shewe wit to women which are neither able nor 

willinge to receyue fruite thereoff ? Doest thou not knowe that the 

tree Siluacenda beareth no fruite in Pharo? That the Persian 

trees in Rhodes doe onely waxe greene, but neuer bringe foorth 30 

apple ? 

That Amomus, and Nardus will onely growe in India, Balsamum 

onely in Syria, that in Rhodes no Eagle will builde hir neast, 

no Owle liue in Crete, no wit springe in the will of women ? Mortifie 

therefore thy affections, and force not Nature against Nature to 35 

striue in vaine. Goe into the countrey looke to thy grounds, yoke 

thine Oxen, follow thy Plough, graft thy trees, beholde thy Cattel, 

2 thine] thy Trest 7 all] many E rest 11 the] thy T rest 12 sweete 

onu E rest 18 straying TM: sttaunge C-1623 : strong 1631-6 30 tree G 

32 Amomus all preceding eds. misprint Amonius 37 thy] the Trest


and deuise with thy selfe how the encrease of them may encrease 

thy profite. In Aututnne pull thine apples, in Sommer ply thy 

haruest, in the Springe trimme thy gardeps, in the Winter, thy woodes, 

and thus beginninge to delight to be a good husband, thou shalt 

5 begin to detest to be in loue with an idle huswife, when profite shall 

begin to fill thy purse with golde, then pleasure shall haue no force 

to defile thy minde wyth loue. For honest recreation after thy toyle, 

vse hunting or haukeing, either rowse the Deere, or vnperch the 

Phesaunt, so shalt thou roote out the remembraunce of thy former 

10 loue, and repent thee of thy foolishe lust. And although thy sweete 

heart binde thee by othe alwaye to holde a candle at hir shrine, & to 

offer thy deuotyon to thine owne destruction, yet goe, runne, flye, 

into the countrey, neither water thou thy plantes, in that thou 

departest from thy Pigges nye, neither stand in a mammering 

15 whether it be best to departe or not, but by how much the more 

thou arte vnwillyng to go, by so much the more hasten thy steppes, 

neyther fayne for thy selfe any sleeuelesse excuse whereby thou 

mayste tarry. Neyther lette rayne nor thunder, neyther lyghtening 

nor tempest, stay thy iourney, and recken not with thy selfe how 

20 many myles thou hast gone, that sheweth wearinesse, but how many 

thou hast to go, that proueth manlynesse. But foolysh & franticke 

louers, wyll deeme my precepts hard, and esteeme my perswasions 

haggarde: I must of force confes, that it is a corasiue to the 

stomacke of a louer, but a comforte to a godly lyuer, to runne 

25 through a thousande pykes, to escape ten thousand perills. Sowre 

potions bringe sounde health, sharpe purgations make shorte diseases, 

and the medicine y e more bitter it is, y e more better it is in working. 

To heale the body we trye Phisicke, search cunninge, proue sorcery, 

venture through fire and water, leauing nothing vnsought, that may 

30 be gotten for money, bee it neuer so much, or procured by any 

meanes, bee they neuer so vnlawfull. Howe much more ought 

wee to hazarde all thinges, for the sauegarde of minde, and quiet of 

conscience ? And certes easier will the remedy bee when the reason 

is espyed, doe you not know the Nature of women which is grounded 

35 onely vpon extremities? 

Do they thinke any man to delyght in them, vnles he doate on 

them? Any to be zealous, excepte they bee gelous? Any to be 

2 ply] pile E rest 3 Garden G rest the om. E rest 10 thy 1 ] such 

E rest 13 the]thy.E 16 willing C-F 21 procureth E rest 

36 in om. EF 37 Any to be ... gelous ? om. E rest

254 EUPHUES 

feruente in case he be not furious ? If he be cleanly, then terme 

they him proude, if meane in apparel, a slouen, if talle, a longis, if 

shorte, a dwarfe, if bolde, blunte, if shamefaste, a cowarde. Insomuch, 

as they haue neyther meane in theire frumpes, nor measure 

in theire follye. But at the firste the Oxe weildeth not the yoke, 5 

nor the Colte the snaffle, nor the louer good counsell, yet time 

causeth the one to bende his necke, the other to open his mouth, 

and shoulde enforce the thirde to yeelde his ryght to reason. Laye 

before thine eyes the slights and deceits of thy Lady, hir snatching in 

iest, and keeping in earnest, hir periurie, hir impietie, the counten- 10 

aunce she sheweth to thee of course, the loue she beareth to others 

of zeale, hir open mallice, hir dissembled mischiefe. 

O I woulde in repeating their vices thou couldest be as eloquent, 

as in remembring them thou oughtest to be penitent: be she neuer 

so comely call hir counterfeite, be she neuer so strayght thinke hir 15 

crooked. And wreste all partes of hir bodye to the worste be she 

neuer so worthye. If she be well sette, then call hir a Bosse, if 

slender, a Hasill twigge, if Nutbrowne, as blacke as a coale, if well 

couloured, a paynted wall, if she be pleasaunt, then is she a wanton, 

if sullemne, a clowne, if honeste, then is she coye, if impudent, 20 

a harlotte. 

Searche euery vayne and sinew of their disposition, if she haue no 

sighte in deskante, desire hir to chaunte it, if no cunning to daunce 

request hir to trippe it, if no skill in Musicke, profer hir the Lute, if 

an ill gate, then walke with hir, if rude in speach, talke with hir, if she 25 

be gagge toothed, tell hir some merry ieste to make hir laughe, if 

pinke eyed, some dolefull Historye, to cause hir weepe, in the one 

hir grinning will shewe hir deformed, in the other hir whininge, lyke 

a Pigge halfe rosted. 

It is a worlde to see how commonly we are blynded with the 3° 

collusions of woemen, and more entised by their ornaments being 

artificiall, then their proportion beeing naturall. I loathe almoste 

to thincke on their oyntments, and Apoticarie drugges, the sleeking 

of theire faces, and all their slibber sawces, which bring quesinesse 

to the stomacke, and disquyet to the minde. 35 

Take from them their periwiggs, their payntings, their Iewells, 

their rowles, their boulsterings, and thou shalt soone perceiue that 

a woman is the least parte of hir selfe. When they be once robbed 

2 Inngis Trest, txcept E 1 lunges 6 good] his Brest 13 of before 

their E rest 33 sliking E rest 34 quasinesss A : queasines E rest


of their robes, then will they appeare so odious, so vgly, so 

monstrous, yt thou wilt rather thinke the Serpents then Saynts, 

& so lyke Hags, y j thou wilt feare rather to be enchanted then 

enamoured. Looke in their closets, and there shalt thou finde an 

Apoticaries shoppe of sweet confections, a Surgions boxe of sundrye 

salues, a Pedlars packe of new fangles. Besides all this their 

shadows, their spottes, their lawnes, their leefekyes, their ruffes, their 

rings, shew the rather Cardinals curtisans, then modest Matrones, and 

more carnally affected, then moued in conscience. If euery one of 

10 these things seuerally be not of force to moue thee, yet all of them 

ioyntly should mortefie thee. 

Moreouer to make thee y e more stronger, to striue agaynst these 

Syrettes, and more subtill to deceiue these tame Serpents, my 

counsayle is that thou haue more strings to thy bow then one, it is 

15 safe riding at two ancres, a fire deuided in twayne burneth slower, 

a fountayne running into many riuers, is of lesse force, the minde 

enamoured on two women, is lesse affected with desire, and lesse 

infected with despaire, one loue expelleth an other, and the 

remembraunce of the latter quencheth the concupiscence of the 

20 first. 

Yet if thou bee so weake being bewitched with their wiles that 

thou hast neyther will to eschue, nor wit to auoyde their copany, if 

thou be eyther so wicked y t thou wilt not, or so wedded that thou 

canst not abstaine from their glaunces, yet at the leaste dissemble 

25 thy griefe: If thou be as hot as the mount Aetna, faine thy self as 

colde as y e hil Caucasus, carry two faces in one hood, couer thy 

flaming fancie with fained ashes, shew thy selfe sounde when thou 

art rotten, lette thy hew be merrye, when thy heart is melancholy, 

beare a pleasaunt countenaunce, with a pyned conscience, a paynted 

30 sheathe with a leaden dagger: Thus dissembling thy griefe, thou 

maist recure thy disease. Loue crepeth in by stealth and by stealth 

slydeth away. 

If she breake promise with thee in the nighte, or absent hir selfe 

in the daye, seeme thou carelesse and then will she be carefull, if 

35 thou languish, then will she bee lauish of hir honour, yea & of the 

other straunge beast hir honestie. Stande thou on thy pantuffies, 

and shee will vayle bonnet, lye thou aloofe, and she will ceaze on 

the lure, if thou passe by hir dore and be called backe, either seeme 

11 mollifie E rest 12 y e more] the E rest 17 on] of E rest 19 

latere 1613-23

256 EUPHUES 

deafe and not to heare, or desperate, and not to care. Fly the 

places, the parlours, the portalles, wherein thou hast bene conuersaunt 

with thy Lady, yea Philautus shunne the streete where 

Lucilla doth dwell, least the sighte of hir window, renew the summe 

of thy sorrow. 5 

Yet although I woulde haue thee precise, in keeping these precepts, 

yet woulde I haue thee to auoyde sollytarinesse, that breedes melancholy, 

melancholy, madnesse, madnesse mischiefe and vtter desolation 

: haue euer some faithfull pheere, with whome thou mayst 

communicate thy cotlcells, some Ptlades to encourage Orestes, some 10 

Damon to release Pithias, some Scipio to recure Lalius. Phillis in 

wandringe the woodes hanged hir selfe: Asiarchus forsakinge companye, 

spoyled himselfe with his own bodkin: Biarus a Romaine, 

more wise the" fortunate, beeing alone destroyed himselfe with a potsherd. 

Beware solitarines. But although I would haue thee vse 15 

companye for thy recreation, yet woulde I haue thee alwaies to leaue 

the company of those yt accdpany thy Lady, yea, if she haue any 

iewel of thine in hir custody, rather loose it, then go for it, least in 

seeking torecouer a trifle, thou renewe thine olde trouble. Be not 

curious to curlle thy haire, nor carefull to be neate in thine apparell, 20 

bee not prodigal of thy golde, nor precise in thy goinge, bee not like 

the Englishman whiche preferreth euery straunge fashion, before the 

vse of his countrey, bee thou dissolute, least thy Lady thincke thee 

foolish in framing thy selfe to euery fashion for hir sake. Beleeue 

not their othes & solemne protestations, their exorcismes & coniura- 2 5 

tions, their tears which they haue at commaundement, their alluring 

lookes, their treading on the toe, their vnsauerie toyes. 

Let euery one loath his Ladye, and bee ashamed to bee hir seruaunt. 

It is riches and ease that nourisheth affection, it is play, wine, and 

wantonnesse, that feedeth a louer as fat as a foole, refraine from all 3° 

such meates as shall prouoke thine appetite to lust, and all such 

meanes, as may allure thy minde to folly. Take cleere water for 

stronge wine, browne bread for fine manchet, beefe and brewys, for 

Quailes & Partridge, for ease, labour, for pleasure, paine, for surfetting, 

hunger, for sleepe, watching, for the fellowshippe of Ladyes, the 35 

companie of Philosophers. If thou saye to mee, Phisition heale thy 

selfe, I aunswere, that I am meetly well purged of that disease, and 

I deafe . .. to 1 ] thou deafe, and not to G: thou deafe and doo not E rest 2 

place £ rest 15 of after Beware G rest 17 company F 20 thine] 

thy G rest 23 dessolute C. Qy. ?ressolute i.e. unchanging but F Be not 

dissolute perh. rightly 32 thy] the C rest

TO THE GRAUE MATRONES, ETC. 257 

yet was I neuer more willing to cure my selfe then to comfort my 

friend. And seeing the cause that made in mee so colde a deuotion, 

shoulde make in thee also as frosen a desire, I hope thou wilt be 

as ready to prouide a salue as thou wast hastie in seeking a sore. 

5 And yet Philautus I woulde not that all women shoulde take pepper 

in the nose, in that I haue disclosed the legerdemaines of a fewe, for 

well I knowe none will winch excepte she bee gawlded, neither any bee 

offended vnlessc shee be guiltie. Therefore I earnestly desire thee, 

that thou shewe this cooling carde to none, except thou shew also this 

10 my defence to them all. For although I waye nothing the ill will of 

light huswiues, yet woulde I bee loath to loose the good will of honest 

matrones. Thus beeing ready to goe to Athens and readie there to 

entertaine thee, whensouer thou shalte repayre thether. I bidde thee 

farewell, and flye women. 

15 H Thine euer 

Euphues. 

II To the graue Matrones 

and honest Maydens 

of Italy, 

20 Entlewomen bicause I would neither bee mistaken of purpose, 

neyther misconstrued of mallice, least either the simple should 

suspect me of folly, or the subtill condemne me of blasphemye against 

the noble sexe of women, I thought good that this my faythe shoulde 

be set downe to finde fauour with the one, and confute the cauils of 

25 the other. Beleeue me gentlewomen, although I haue ben bolde to 

inuay agayne many, yet am I not so brutish to enuy them all, though 

I seeme not so gamesome as Aristippus to play with Lais, yet am 

I not so dogged as Diogenes to abhorre all Ladyes, neither would I 

you should thincke me so foolish (although of late I haue bene very 

30 fantasticall) that for the light behauiour of a fewe, I shoulde call in 

question the demeanour of all. I know that as ther hath bene an 

vnchast Helen in Greece, so there hath bene also a chast Penelope, as 

there hath bene a prodigious Pasiphae, so there hath bene a godly 

Theocrita, though many haue desired to be beloued as Jupiter loued 

35 Alcmæna yet some haue wished to be embraced as Phrigius embraced 

Pieria, as ther hath raigned a wicked Iesabel, so hath there 

I I was G rest 4 seeing T 7 gauled E rest; exc. 1623 galled 9 

this 2 om. E rest 13 whensoeuer T rest 24 to before confute E rest 26 

against Trest I am E rest 35 Alcmena G rest 36 Piera E rest 

BOND 1 

S

258 EUPHUES 

ruled a deuoute Debora, though many haue bene as fickle as Lucilla, 

yet hath there many bene as faithful as Lucretia. Whatsoeuer therfore 

I haue spoken of the spleene against y e slights and subtilties of 

women, I hope ther is none wil mislike it if she be honest, neither 

care I if any doe if shee be an harlot. The sowre crab hath the 5 

shewe of an apple as well as the sweet pyppin, the black Rauen the 

shape of a birde as well as the white Swanne, y e lewde wight the name 

of a woman as wel as the honest Matrone. There is great difference 

betweene y e standing puddle, and the running streame, yet 

both water, great ods betweene the Adamant and the Pommice, yet 10 

both stones, a great distinction to be put betweene Vitrum and the 

Christall, yet both glasse, greate contrarietie betweene Lais and 

Lucretia, yet both women. Seeing therfore one maye loue the 

cleere Conduit water, though he loath the muddie ditch, and weare 

the precious Diamonde, though he dispise the ragged bricke, I 15 

thincke one may also with safe conscience reuerence the modest sex 

of honest maydens, though he forsweare the lewde sort of vnchast 

minions. Vlysses though he detested Calipso w hir sugered voice, 

yet he imbraced Penelope with hir rude distaffe. Though Euphues 

abhorre y e beautie of Lucilla, yet wil he not absteine from y e com- 20 

pany of a graue maiden. Though y e teares of the Hart be salt, 

yet the tears of y e Bore be sweet, though y e teares of some women 

be counterfaite to deceiue, yet y e tears of many be currat to try their 

loue. I for my part wil honour those alwaies y t be honest, & 

worship the in my life who I shall know to be worthy in their liuing, 25 

neither can I promise such precisenes y fc I shall neuer be caught 

againe with y e bayte of beautie, for although the falshood of Lucilla 

haue caused me to forsake my wonted dotage, yet the faith of some 

Ladye may cause me once againe to fall into mine olde disease. For 

as the fire stone in Liguria though it bee quenched with milke, yet 30 

againe it is kindled with water, or as the rootes of Anchusa, though it 

bee hardned with water, yet it is againe made soft with Oyle, so the 

heart of Euphues enflamed earst with loue, although it bee cooled 

with the deceites of Lucilla, yet will it againe flame with the loyaltie 

of some honest Ladye, and though it bee hardned with the water of 35 

wilynesse, yet will it bee mollified with the Oyle of wisedome. I presume 

therfore so much vpon the discretion of you gentlewomen that 

2 beene many C rest 11 Vitrem A 29 my Frest 31 againe it] again 

C rest as om. C rest roote 1613 rest 3 a againe it is G rest 35 

although E rest

TO THE GRAUE MATRONES, ETC. 259 

you wil not thinck the worse of me, in y I haue thought so ill of 

some women, or loue mee the worse in that I loath some so much. 

For this is my faith that some one Rose will be blasted in y e bud, 

some other neuer fall from the stalke, that the Oke wil soone be 

5 eaten with the worme, the Walnut tree neuer, that some women will 

easily be entised to folly, some other neuer allured to vanitie. You 

ought therefore no more to bee agrieued with that which I haue 

sayde, then the mint Maister to see the coyner hanged, or the true 

subiect the false traytour araigned, or the honest man the theefe 

10 condemned. And so farewell. 

You haue hearde (Gentlemen) howe soone the hot desire of 

Euphues was turned into a cold deuotion, not that fancie caused him 

to chaunge, but that the ficklenesse of Lucilla enforced him to alter his 

minde. Hauing therfore determined with himselfe, neuer againe to 

15 be entangled with such fonde delightes, accordinge to the appointment 

made with Philautus, he immediately repaired to Athens, ther 

to followe his owne priuate study : And callyng to minde his former 

losenes, & how in his youth, he had mispent his time, he thought 

to giue a Caueat to all parents, how they might bring 

20 their children vp in vertue, and a commaundement 

to al youth, how they should frame themselues to 

their fathers instructions: in the which is 

plainly to be seene, what wit can, & will 

do, if it be well employed, which dis- 

25 course following, although it bring 

lesse pleasure to your youthfull 

mindes the his first course, yet 

will it bring more profite, in 

the one being conteined the 

30 race of a louer, in the 0ther, 

the reasons of a 

Philosopher. 

7 greeued E 2 rest 20 vp their childre C rest 22 instruction E 2 rest 

the om. Trest 25 folio weth : E rest 27 discourse G rest

Euphues and his Ephoebus. 

[Lyly'sad. IT is commonly sayd, yet doe I thinke it a common lye, that 

{all this J- Experience is the Mistresse of fooles, for in my opinion they 

section)... be most fooles that want it. Neyther am I one of y e least that haue 

tryed this true, neither he onely that heretofore deemed it to be 5 

false. I was heereof a studente of great wealth, of some wit, of no 

smal acquayntance, yet haue I learned that by Experience, that 

I shoulde hardly haue seene by learning. I haue thorowly sifted the 

disposition of youth, wherein I haue founde more branne then meale, 

more dowe then leauen, more rage then reason. He that hath bene 10 

burned knoweth the force of the fire, he that hath bene stoung, 

remembreth the smarte of the Scorpion, he that hath endured the 

brunts of fancie, knoweth best how to eschew y e broyles of affection. 

Let therefore my counsayle be of such aucthoritie as it may commaund 

you to be sober, your conuersation of such integritie, as it 15 

may encourage mee to go forwarde in that which I haue taken in 

hande: the whole effect shall be to sette downe a young man so 

absolute as that nothing may be added to his further perfection. 

And although Plato hath ben so curious in his common weale, 

Aristotle so precise in his happy man, Tullie so pure in his orator, 20 

that we may well wish to see them, but neuer haue anye hope to 

enioy them, yet shall my young Impe be such an one as shall be 

perfect euery way and yet common, if dilygence and Industrie be 

imployed to the attayning of such perfection. But I would not haue 

young men slowe to followe my precepts, or idle to defer the time 25 

lyke Saint George, who is euer on horse backe yet neuer rideth. 

If my counsell shal seeme rigorous to fathers to instructe their 

children, or heauie for youth to follow their parents will: Let them 

both remember that the Estrich disgesteth harde yron to preserue 

his healthe, that the souldiour lyeth in his harnesse to atchieue 30 

conquest, that the sicke patient swalloweth bitter pilles to be eased 

i and] to E rest 5 thought T rest 6 was heereof] have ben heere T rest 

a a an] a E rest 24 could E L 29 digesteth E rest 30 hardnesse E l

EUPHUES AND HIS EPHCEBUS 261 

of his griefe, that youth shoulde indure sharpe stormes to finde 

reliefe. 

I my selfe had bene happye if I had bene vnfortunate, wealthy 

if lefte meanely, better learned if I had bene better lyued, we haue 

5 an olde (Prouerb) youth will haue his course. Ah gentlemen it is 

a course which we ought to make a course accompte off, replenished 

with more miseries the olde age, with more sinnes then commo 

cutthroats, with more calamities the" y e date of Priamus: we are 

no sooner out of the shell but we resemble the Cocyx which de- 

1o stroyeth it selfe thorowe selfe will, or the Pellican which pearceth 

a wounde in hir owne breast: we are eyther leade with a vayne 

glorye of our proper personage, or with selfe loue of our sharpe 

capacitie, either entangled with beautie, or seduced by idle pastimes, 

eyther witcht with vicious company of others, or inueigled with our 

15 owne conceits, of all these things I may the bolder speake, hauing 

tryed it true to mine owne trouble. 

To the entente therefore that all younge gentlemen might shunne 

my former losenesse I haue set it downe, and that all might follow 

my future lyfe, I meane heere to she we what fathers shoulde doe, 

20 what children shoulde followe, desiring them both not reiecte it 

bicause it proceedeth from one which hath bene lewde, no more 

then if they woulde neglect the golde bycause it lyeth in the durtye 

earthe or the pure wyne for that it commeth out of an homely 

presse, or the precious stone Aetites which is founde in the filthy 

25 neastes of the Eagle, or the precious gemme Draconites that is 

euer taken out of the heade of the poysoned Dragon. But to my 

purpose. - •] 

H That the childe shoulde be true borne, no 

bastarde. 

3° Thirst touching their procreation, it shall seeme necessarie to [riut.t.2.^ 

entreate off who so euer he be y f desireth to be the Sire of 

an happy sonne, or the father of a fortunate childe, lette him abstaine 

from those women which be eyther base of birth, or bare of honestie: 

for if y e mother be noted of incontinencie, or the father of vice, the 

5 (Prouerb) the marks of parenthesis transferred to ' youth .. . course' in 1617 

[1623], om.1631, 1636 6 a om. C rest 9 Cocix E rest 10 it] her 

G rest 12 sharpe] owne G rest 20 to before reiect C rest 23 an] 

a TME rest-, the CG 25 Dacromtes TM: Droconites E rest 26 our 

Crest 28 shoulde om. Grest 30 the G rest 31 E rest, mistaking 

sense, place colon at intreate of instead of comma ofA-G

262 EUPHUES 

childe will eyther during tyfe, be infected with the like crime, or 

the trecheries of his parents as ignomye to him will be cast in his 

teeth: For we commonlye call those vnhappy children, which haue 

sprong from vnhonest parents. It is therefore a great treasure'to 

the father and tranquilitie to the minde of the childe, to haue that 5 

lybertie, which both nature, law, and reason hath sette downe. 

The guyltie conscience of a father that hath troden awry, causeth 

him to thinke and suspect that his father also went not right, 

wherby his owne behauiour is as it were a witnesse, of his owne basenesse. 

Euen as those that come of a noble progenie boast of their 10 

gentrye. Heerevppon it came that Diophantus, Themistocks his 

sonne woulde often and that openly saye in a great multitude, that 

what soeuer he shoulde seeme to request of the Athenians, he should 

be sure also to obtayne, for sayth hee, what soeuer I will that wil 

my mother, and what my mother sayth my father sootheth, and what 15 

my father desireth that the Athenians will graunt most willingly. 

The bolde courage of the Lacedemonians is to be praysed, which sette 

a fine on the heade of Archidamius their king, for y he had married a 

woman of a small personage, saying he minded to begette Queenes, not 

[Plut, c 3.] Kinges to succeede him. Lette vs not omitte that which our Aunces- 20 

tours were wont precisely to keepe that men shoulde either bee sober, 

or drincke little wine, that woulde haue sober and discrete children, 

for that the fact of the father woulde bee figured in the infant. 

Diogenes therefore seeing a younge man either ouercome with drincke 

or bereued of hys wits, cryed with a lowde voice, youth, youth, thou 25 

hadst a dronken Father. And thus muche for procreation, nowe howe 

the life shoulde bee ledde I will shewe briefly. 

Howe the life of a younge man 

should be lead. 

[Plut.c.4.] THHere are three thinges whiche cause perfection in man, 30 

I Nature, Reason, Use. Reason I call discipline, Use exercise, 

if any one of these braunches want, certeinely the tree of vertue 

must needes wither. For Nature without discipline is of small force, 

and discipline without Nature more feeble: if exercise or study be 

voide of any of these, it auayleth nothing. For as in tilling .of the 35 

grounde and husbandry, there is first chosen a fertil soyle, then 

2 treacherie Frest his] the E rest ignominie Frest his] 

theFrest 15 what 1 ] that Frest 18 Archidamus Trest 19 get 

E rest 30 a before man E rest

AND HIS EPHGEBUS 263 

a cunning sower, then good seede, euen so must wee compare 

Nature to the fatte earthe, the expert husbandman to the Schoolemaister, 

the faculties and sciences to the pure seedes. If this order 

had not bene in our predecessors, Pithagoras, Socrates, Plato, and 

5 whosoeuer was renowmed in Greece for the glorie of wisdome : they 

had neuer bene eternished for wise men, neither cannonished as it 

were for Saincts amonge those that studye sciences. It is therefore 

a most euident signe of Gods singuler fauour towardes him that is 

endued with all these qualities, without the least of the which man is 

10 most miserable. But if there be any one that deemeth wit not 

necessary to the obtayninge of wisedome, after hee hath gotten the 

waye to vertue by industrye and exercise, hee is an heriticke, in my 

opinion touching the true faith of learning, for if Nature playe not 

hir parte, in vayne is laboure, and as I sayd before if study bee not 

15 imployed, in vayne is Nature. Sloth tourneth the edge of wit, Study 

sharpeneth the minde, a thing be it neuer so easie is hard to the 

(idle), a thinge bee it neuer so hard is easie to the wit wel employed. 

And most plainely we may see in many thinges the efficacie of 

industry and laboure. 

20 The little drops of rayne pearceth harde Marble, yron wyth often 

handlinge is worne to nothinge. Besides this, industry sheweth hir 

selfe in other thinges, the fertill soyle if it bee neuer tilled doth 

waxe barren, and that which is most noble by nature is made 

most vyle by negligence. What tree if it bee not topped beareth 

25 any fruite ? What vine if it bee not proyned, bringeth foorth 

grapes? is not the strength of the body tourned too weakenesse 

throughe too much delicasie, were not Milo his armes brawnefallen, 

for want of wrastlinge ? moreouer by labour the fierce Unicorne is 

tamed, the wyldest Fawlcon is reclaymed, the greatest bulwarke is 

30 sacked. It was well aunswered of that man of Thessalie, who beeinge 

demaunded who amonge the Thessalians were reputed moste vyle, 

those sayd hee that Hue at quyet and ease, neuer gyuing themselues 

to marciall affayres: but what should one vse many woordes in a 

thinge already proued. It is custome, vse and exercise, that bringe 

35 a younge man to vertue, and vertue to his perfection. Lycurgus the 

lawegiuer of the Sparthans dyd nourish two whelpes, both of one 

syre and one damme : But after a sundry manner, for the one hee 

6 eternized E rest canonised T rest 9 the least of om. C rest 10 

thinketh T rest 14 I] it is E rest 16 sharpeneth not E l 17 (idle) 

A-G idle E rest the om. E 2 rest 20 pearce the G rest 27 with 

T rest 34 brings E rest 37 a om. Frest

264 EUPHUES 

framed to hunte, & the other to lye alwaies in y e chymneys end at 

the porredge pot, afterwarde callinge the Lacedemonians into one 

assemblye, hee sayde, To the attayninge of vertue yee Lacedemonians, 

education, industry, and exercise, is the most noblest meanes, the 

truth of the which I wyll make manifest vnto you by tryall, then 5 

brynginge foorth the whelpes and settinge downe there a potte, and 

a hare, the one ranne at the hare, the other to the porredge potte, 

the Lacedemonians scarce vnderstandinge this mistery, hee sayde both 

these bee of one syre and one damme, but you see howe education 

altereth nature. 

11 Of the education of 

youth. 

[plut c. 5. ] IT is most necessarie and most naturall in myne opinion, that the 

I mother of the childe bee also the nurse, both for the entire loue 

shee beareth to the babe, and the great desire she hath to haue it 15 

[Lylys' ad- well nourished: for is there any one more meete to bring vp the 

dition (4 infant then she that bore it ? or will any be so carefull for it, as shee 

that bredde it ? for as the throbbes and throwes in chyldbirth wrought 

hir payne, so the smilinge countenaunce of the infant increaseth hir 

...] pleasure. The hyred nurse is not vnlike to y e hyred saruaunt which 20 

not for good will but gayne, not for loue of the man but the desire 

of the money, accomplished hys dayes worke. Moreouer Nature in 

thys poynte enforceth the mother to nurse hir owne childe, which 

hath gyuen vnto euerye beast milke to succour hyr owne, and mee 

thincketh Nature to be a most prouident foreseer and prouider for 25 

the same, which hath giuen vnto a woman two pappes, that if shee 

shoulde conceiue two, shee might haue wherewith also to nourishe 

twaine, and that by sucking of the mothers brestes, there might bee 

a greater loue bothe of the mother towardes the childe, and the childe 

towardes the mother, which is very likely to come to passe, for we 30 

see commonly those that eate and drincke and liue together, to be 

[Lyly's ad- more zealous one to the other, then those that meete seldome. Is 

dition not the name of a mother most sweet ? If it bee, why is halfe that 

{nearly 2 . es)... title bestowed on a woman which neuer felte the paines in conceyuing, 

neyther can conceiue the lyke pleasure in nurseing as the mother 35 

5 the om. Trest 6 Whelpe E 2 F 7 and before the 3 E rest to] 

at C rest 8 this] the E 2 rest 9 of before these Trest 20 vnto G 21 

the before loue G rest for before the 2 E rest 26 to E rest 27 

shoulde AT 1617 rest', coulde M-I6I3 28 breast E rest 33 more C rest 

that] the E 2 rest 35 nourishing C rest

AND HIS EPHCEBUS 265 

doth ? is the earthe called the mother of all thinges onely bicause it 

bringeth foorth ? No, but bicause it nourisheth those thinges that 

springe out of it: whatsoeuer is bredde in the sea, is fed in the sea, 

no plant, no tree,, no hearbe commeth out of the ground that is not 

5 moystened and as it were nursed of the moysture and milke of the 

earth : the Lionnesse nurseth hir whelpes, the Rauen cherisheth hir 

birdes, the Uiper hir broode, and shall a woman cast away hir babe ? 

I accompte it cast awaye whiche in the swathe clowtes is cast 

aside, and little care can that Mother haue, whiche can suffer suche 

io crueltie : and can it bee tearmed wyth any other tytle then crueltie, 

the infant yet lookinge redde of the mother, the mother yet breathing 

through the torments of hir trauaile, the childe crying for helpe 

which is sayd to mooue wilde beasts, euen in the selfe sayde 

momente it is borne, or the next minute, to deliuer to a straunge 

15 nurse, whiche perhappes is neyther holsome in bodye, neyther 

honest in manners, whiche esteemeth more thy argent although a 

trifle, then thy tender infant thy greatest treasure ? Is it not necessary 

and requisite that the babe bee nursed wyth that true accustomed 

iuyce & cherished with his wonted heat, & not fed with 

20 couterfaite diet ? Wheat throwne into a straunge ground [tourneth 

to a contrary grayne, y e Uyne translated into an other soyle changeth 

his kinde. A slippe pulled fro the stalke withereth, the young childe 

as it were slipped from the pappes of his mother eyther changeth his 

nature or altereth his disposition. It is pretely sayd of Horace a 

25 newe vessell will long time sauour of that lyquor that is first powred 

into it, and the infant will euer smell of the Nurses manners hauing 

tasted of hir milke. Therefore lette the mother as often as she 

shal beholde those two fountaynes of milke, as it were of their 

owne accorde flowing and swelling with lycour, remember that shee 

30 is admonished of nature, yea commaunded of dutie, to cherishe hir 

owne childe, with hir owne teates, otherwise when the babe shall 

nowe beginne to tattle and call hir Mamma, with what face canne 

she heare it of his mouth vnto whome shee hath denyed Mamma ? 

It is not milke only yat encreaseth y e strength or augmenteth the 

35 body, but the naturall heat & agreement of the mothers body with 

the childes, it craueth y e same accustomed moisture that before it 

receiued in the bowells, by the which the tender parts were bounde 

9 that] the T rest 14 it before to 2 G rest 23 his 1 ] the E 25 newe 

om. E l rest 28 these E rest 31 other-while E 32 force A 35 but 

the naturall . . . body om. E rest, from the recurrence of the word body 35-6 

with the childe GEE: of the child 1613 rest, owing to omission just noted

266 EUPHUES 

& knit together, by the which it encreased and was succoured in the 

body. 

Certes I am of that minde that the witte and disposition is altered 

and chaunged by the milke, as the moysture and sappe of the earth, 

doth change the nature of that tree or plant that it nourisheth, Where- 5 

fore the common bye worde of the common people seemeth to be 

grounded vppon good experience which is; This fellow hath sucked 

mischiefe euen from the teate of his nursse. The Grecians when they 

saw any one sluttishly fedde, they woulde say euen as nurses: whereby 

they noted the greate dislykinge they hadde of theire fulsome feed-10 

ing. The Etimologk of mother among the Grecian, may aptly bee 

applyed to those mothers which vnnaturally deale with their children, 

they cal it meter a meterine, that is mother of not makinge 

much off, or of not nourishing, heereof it commeth that the sonne 

doth not with deepe desire loue his mother, neyther wyth ductie obay 15 

hir, his naturall affection being as it were deuided and distraught into 

twain, a mother & a nurse : heereoff it proceedeth that the mother 

beareth but a colde kindenesse towardes hir childe, when she shall 

see the nature of hir nurse in the nurture of hir childe. The chiefest 

way to learning is, if there be a mutuall loue and feruent desire 20 

betweene the teacher and him that is taught, then verely the greatest 

furtheraunce to education is if the mother nourish the childe and the 

childe sucke the mother, that there be as it were a relacion and 

...] [Plut, reciprecall order of affection. Yet if the mother either for the euill 

c. 5 re - habite of the body, or the weakenesse of hir pappes, cannot though 25 

she woulde nurse' hir infant, then lette hir prouide suche a one 

as shall be of a good complexion, of an honest condition, carefull 

to tender the childe, louing to see well to it, willyng to take paynes, 

dillygent in tending and prouiding all thinges necessarye, and as lyke 

both in the lyniaments of the body and disposition of the minde 30 

to y e mother as may be. Lette hir forslow no occasion that may 

bringe the childe to quietnesse and cleanelynesse, for as the parts of 

a childe as soone as it is borne are framed and fashioned of the midwife, 

y t in all poynts it may be streight and comely, so the manners 

of the childe at the first are to be looked vnto that nothing discom- 35 

mend the minde, that no crooked behauiour or vndecent demeanour 

bee founde in the man. 

7 This] The E rest 13 meterine A-GE 1 : Neterine E 2 rest. Prob. Lyly 

wrote or meant See note 19 hir {both)] the C rest 25 the 1 ] hir 

T rest 26 hir 1 ] the C rest 27 a om. E rest an om. TMC: of an om. G rest


Young and tender age is easily framed to-manners, and hardely 

are those thinges mollyfied which are harde. For as the Steele is 

imprinted in the softe waxe, so learning is engrauen in the minde of 

an young impe. Plato that deuine Philosopher admonished all 

5 nurses and weaners of youth, that they should not be to busie to tell 

them fonde fables or filthie tales, least at their entraunce into the 

worlde they shoulde be contaminated with vnseemelye behauiour, 

vnto the which Phocilides the Poet doth pithely allude, saying. 

Whilst that the childe is young lette him bee instructed in vertue, and 

10 lyterature. 

Moreouer they are to bee trayned vpp in the language of their [Plut. c. 6.] 

country, to pronounce aptly and distinctly without stammering euerye 

worde and sillable of their natiue speache, and to be kepte from 

barbarous talke as the shippe from rockes: least beeinge affected with 

15 their barbarisme they bee infected also with theire vncleane conuersation. 

It is an olde Prouerbe that if one dwell the nexte dore to a creple 

he wil learne to hault, if one be conuersant with an hypocrite, he wil 

soone endeauour to dissemble. When this younge infante shall [Plut. c. 7. . 

20 growe in yeares and bee of that rypenesse that hee can conceiue much 

learninge, insomuch that he is to be committed to the tuition of 

some tutour, all dillygence is to be had to searche such a one as 

shall neyther be vnlearned, neyther ill lyued, neyther a lyght person. 

A gentleman that hath honest and discreete seruants disposeth 

25 them to the encrease of his segnioryes, one he appoynteth stewarde 

of his courtes, an other ouerseer of his landes, one his factoure in 

farre countryes for his merchaundize, an other puruayour for his 

cates at home. 

But if among all his seruauntes he shall espye one eyther filthye in 

30 his talke or foolishe in his behauiour, eyther wythout witte or voyde 

of honestie, eyther an vnthrifte or a wittall, him hee settes not as 

a suruayour and ouerseer of his mannors, but a superuisour of his 

childrens conditions and manners, to him hee committeth the guydinge 

and tuition of his sonnes, which is by hys proper Nature, a slaue, 

35 a knaue by condition, a beast in behauiour. And sooner will they 

bestow an hundreth crownes to haue a horse well broken, then a 

childe well taught, wherein I cannot but maruell to see them so 

4a Erest admonisheth C rest 8 Phocides A 15 also infected 

E rest 19 sooner F 21 as G 32 a 1 om. G as before a 2 G rest 

36 an] a C rest hundred E rest 

much 

expanded.] 

[Lyly's ad 

dition (4 

lines) ...

•••] 

[Lylfs addition( 

3 

lines),. . 

(18 linesfor 

•15 Gk.) 

268 EUPHUES 

carefull to encrease their possessions, when they be so carelesse to 

haue them wise that should inherite them. 

A good and discreete scholemayster should be such an one as 

Phoenix was, the instructor of Achilles, whom Pelkus (as Homer 

reporteth) appoynted to that ende that he should be vnto Achilles 5 

not onely a teacher of learning but an example of good lyuinge. 

But that is most principally to be looked for, and most dilygently to 

be foreseene, that such tutours bee sought out for y e education of 

a young childe, whose lyfe hath neuer bene stayned with dishonestie, 

whose good name hath neuer bene called vnto question, whose 10 

manners hath bene irreprehensible before the worlde. As husbandmen 

hedge in their trees, so shoulde good scholemaysters with 

good manners hedge in the wit and disposition of y e scholler: 

whereby the blossoms of learning may y e sooner encrese to a bud. 

Many parents are in this to be misliked, which hauing neyther tryall 15 

of his honestie nor experience of his learning to whome they committe 

the childe to bee taught, without any deepe or due consideration, 

put them to one eyther ignoraunt or obstinate, the which if 

they themselues shall doe of ignoraunce the folly cannot bee excused, 

if of obstinacie their lewdnesse is to bee abhorred. 20 

Some fathers are ouercome with the flatterie of those fooles, which 

professe outwardly greate knowledge, and shew a certeyne kinde of 

dissembling sinceritie in their lyfe, others at the entreating of their 

familyar friendes are content to commit their sonnes to one without 

eyther substaunce of honestie or shad owe of learning. By which 25 

their vndiscreete dealing, they are lyke those sicke men which reiect 

the expert and cunning Phisition, and at the request of their friendes 

admit the heedelesse practiser which daungereth the patient, and 

bringeth the bodye to his bane: Or not vnlyke vnto those whiche 

at the instaunt and importunate suite of their acquaintaunce refuse 3° 

a cunninge Pylot, and choose an vnskilfull Marriner, whiche hazardeth 

the shippe and themselues in the calmest sea. Good God can there 

bee any that hath the name of a Father which wyll esteeme more the 

fancie of his friende then the nurture of his sonne ? It was not in 

vayne that Crates would often say, that if it were lawfull euen in the 35 

market place, hee would crye out: Whether runne you Fathers, which 

haue all your carke and care to multiplye your wealth, nothing re- 

1 so om, E rest 4 Phaenix A 9 had G 10 into C rest 11 haue 

F rest 19 should E rest 27 at] al E l , all E 2 rest, inserting & before admit 

28 practise G 30 and] an G 31 an] and C 37 your 1 ] you C


gardinge your chyldren vnto whome you must leaue all. In thys they 

resemble him which is very curious about the shooe, and hath no 

care of the foote. Besides this there bee many fathers so inflamed 

with the loue of wealth, that they bee as it were incensed with hate 

5 againste their children; which Aristippus, seeinge in an olde miser, 

did partly note it, this olde miser askinge of Aristippus what hee 

would take to teach and bringe vp hys sonne, hee aunswered a thousand 

groates: a thousand groates, God sheild aunswered this olde 

huddle, I can haue two seruauntes of that price. Unto whome hee 

10 made aunswere, thou shalt haue two seruants and one sonne, and 

whether wilt thou sell ? Is it not absurde to haue so great a care of 

the right hande of the childe to cutte his meate, that if he handle his 

knife in the leaft hand we rebuke him seuerely and to bee secure of 

his nurture in discipline and learning ? But what doe happen vnto 

15 those parentes, that bringe vp theire children lyke wantons ? 

When their sonnes shal growe to mans estate, disdayninge nowe 

to bee corrected, stoborne to obeye, gyuing themselues to vaine 

pleasures and vnseemely pastimes, then with the foolishe trowans 

they beginne to waxe wise and to repent them of theire former follye: 

20 when their sonnes shall insinuate themselues in the companye of 

flatterers, (a kinde of men more perrillous to youthe then any kinde 

of beastes,) when they shall haunt harlottes, frequent tauerns, bee 

curious in their attyre, costly in their dyet, carelesse in their behauiour, 

when they shall eyther bee common dicers wyth gamesters, 

25 eyther wanton dallyers with Ladyes, eyther spende all their thrift on 

wine, or all their wealth on women, then the Father curseth his owne [Lylys ad- 

securitie, and lamenteth to late his childes mysfortune, then the one dition 4 

lines).. . 

accuseth his Syre, as it were of mallice that hee woulde not bringe 

him vppe in learninge, and himselfe of mischiefe that hee gaue not 

30 his minde to good letters. If these youthes had bene trained vp ...] 

in the companye of any Philosopher, they would neuer haue bene so 

disolute in theyr lyfe, or so resolute in their owne conceites. 

It is good nurture that leadeth to vertue, and discreete demeanour 

that playneth the pathe to felicity. If one haue either the giftes of 

35 Fortune, as greate riches, or of nature, as seemely personage, hee is 

to bee dispised in respect of learning. To be a noble man it is most 

excellent, but that is our auncestors, as Vlysses sayde to Aiax, as for 

3 are G rest 7 hee om. G rest 9 can om. A n of] on GE 

14 vnto] to E rest 18 trowants TMC: trewaunts G; Trewant E rest 

20 insumate A 22 Harlot G 25 on] in G rest 27 his] the Erest 

31 Philosoper T 

[plut.c.S.] 

[Lylys addition 

(3 

lines). ..

[Lyly's addition 

(4 

lines) . . . 

• ••] 

[plut. c. 9.] 

270 EUPHUES 

our nobilitie, our stocke, our kindred, and whatsoeuer wee our selues 

haue not done, I scarcely accompt ours, Richesse are precious, but 

Fortune ruleth the rost, which oftentimes taketh away all from them 

that haue much, and gyueth them more that had nothinge,Aglorye is 

a thinge worthy to bee followed, but as it is gotten wyth greate trauayle, 5 

so is it lost in a small time. Beautie is suche a thing as wee commonly 

preferre before all thinges, yet it fadeth before we perceyue it 

to florishe, health is that which all men desire, yet euer subiect to 

any disease, strength is to bee wyshed for, yet is it eyther abated wyth 

an ague, or taken away wyth age: whosoeuer therefore boasteth of 10 

force, is to too beastly, seeing hee is in that qualitie, not to bee compared 

wyth beastes, as the Lyon, y e Bull, the Elephant. It is vertue, 

yea,vertue,gentlemen, y t maketh gentlemen, y t maketh y e poore 

rich, y e base borne noble, the subiect a soueraigne, the deformed 

beautifull, the sicke whole, the weake strong, the most myserable 15 

most happy., There are two principall and peculier gyftes in the 

nature of man, knowledge, and reason, the one commaundeth, the 

other obeyeth : these thinges neyther the whirlinge wheele of Fortune 

can chaunge, neyther the deceitefull cauillinge of worldlinges seperate, 

neyther sicknesse abate, neither age abolish. It is onely knowledge 20 

which worne with yeares waxeth younge, and when all thinges are 

cutte awaye wyth the cycle of time, knowledge florisheth so highe 

that time cannot reach it. Warre taketh all things with it euen as 

the whirlepoole, yet must it leaue learninge behinde it, wherefore it 

was wiselye aunswered in my opinion of Stilpo the Philosopher, for 25 

when Demetrius wonne the Citie and made it euen to the grounde 

leauinge nothinge standing, hee demaunded of Stilpo whether hee 

had lost any thinge of his in this great spoyle: vnto whome he 

aunswered, no verilye, for warre getteth no spoyle of vertue. Unto 

y e like sence may the answere of Socrates be applyed, whe Gorgias 30 

asked him whether he deemed the Persian kinge happy or not, 

I knowe not sayd he how much vertue or discipline he hath, for 

happines doth not consist in y e gifts of fortune, but in grace of 

vertue. But as there is nothing more conuenient the enstruction 

for youth, so would I haue them nurtered in such a place as is re- 35 

nowmed for learning, voyde of corrupte manners, vndefiled with vice, 

that seeinge no vayne delightes they maye the more easilye absteyne 

2 searcely A 4 that had] that hath G: which hath EF; which haue 1613 rest 

6 as] that E rest 7 vadeth G rest u to om, T rest, F reads it is too beastly 

hee] that'he G rest 22 cycle AT: Cicle M: sickle C rest 31 thought Trest 

32 or] and C rest 33 y e before grace T rest 36 corrupte] incorrupt T M


from lycensious desires. They that studye to please the multitude 

are sure to displease the wyse, they that seeme to flatter rude people 

wyth their rude pretences, leuell at great honoure, hauinge no ayme 

at honestie. When I was heere a student in Athens, it was thought 

5 a greate commendation for a younge scholler to make an Oration 

extempore, but certeinely in my iudgement it is vtterly to bee condemned, 

for whatsoeuer is done rashlye, is done also rawely, he that 

taketh vppon him to speake wythout premedytation, knoweth, neyther 

howe to begynne, nor where to ende, but fallinge into a vayne of 

10 bablinge, vttereth those thinges whiche wyth modestye hee shoulde 

haue concealed, and forgetteth those thinges that before hee had 

conceyued. An Oration eyther penned, eyther premeditated, keepeth 

it selfe within the bounds of Decorum, I haue read that Pericles 

beeinge at sundry times called of the people to pleade, woulde 

1 5 alwayes aunswere that hee was not readye: euen after the same 

manner Demosthenes beeing sent for to declaime amyddest the 

multitude, staide and sayd I am not yet prouided. 

And in his inuectiue agaynst Midias, he seemeth to prayse the 

profitablenesse of premeditation, I confesse sayth hee, ye Athenians, 

20 that I haue studyed and considered deepely wyth my selfe what to 

speake, for I were a sot if without due consideration had of those 

thinges that are to be spoken, I shoulde haue talked vnaduisedly. 

But I speake this not to this ende to condemne the exercise of the 

witte, but that I would not haue any younge scholler openly to exer- 

25 cyse it: but when he shall grow both in age and eloquence, in so 

much as he shall throughe great vse & good memorye be able aptly 

to conceiue & redely to vtter any thing, the this saying extempore 

bringeth an admiration & delight to the auditorye, and singuler 

prayse and commendacion to the Orator. For as he that hath long 

30 time ben fettered with chaynes beeing released halteth through the 

force of his former yrons, so he that hath bene vsed to a stricke 

kinde of pleading, when hee shall talke extempore wil sauor of his 

former penning. But if any shal vse it as it wer a precept for youth 

to tattle extempore, he wil in time bring them to an immoderate 

35 kinde of humilitie. A certein painter brought to Appelles the counterfaite 

of a face in a table saying: loe Appelles I drew this eue now. 

Whervnto he replyed. If thou hadst ben silent I would haue iudged 

2 pleople T 13 bonds TM: bands CG: bound F; bounds AE 1613-36 

18 Mydas A rest 2 2 talked] spoken E rest 25 should E rest 31 

strickt TM (cf. p. 285, l. 5): siricte C rest 33 will G rest 34 talke E rest 

35 to Appelles the AT: Appelles the MCG: Appelles to the E rest

272 EUPHUES 

this picture to haue ben framed of y e sodain. I maruel y t in this 

time thou couldst not paynt many more of these. But retourne we 

again, as I woulde haue tragicall and stately stile shunned, so would 

I haue that abiect & base phrase eschued, for this swellyng kinde of 

talke hath lyttle modestie, the other nothing moueth. 5 

Besides this, to haue the oration all one in euerye part, neither 

adorned with fine figures, neither sprinckled with choyse phrases, 

bringeth teadiousnesse to the hearers, and argueth the speaker of 

lyttle learning and lesse eloquence. He shoulde more ouer talke of 

manye matters, not alwayes harp vpon one string, he that alwayes 10 

singeth one note without deskant breedeth no delyght, he that 

alwayes playeth one part bringeth lothsomenesse to the eare. It is 

varietie that moueth the minde of all men, and one thing sayd twice 

(as wee say commonly) deserueth a trudge. Homer woulde say that 

it loathed him to repeate any thing agayne though it were neuer so 15 

pleasaunt or profitable. Though the Rose be sweete yet being tyed 

with the Uiolet the smel is more fragraunte, though meate nurrish, 

yet hauing good sauor it prouoketh the appetite. The fayrest nosegay 

is made of many flowers, the finest picture of sundry colours, y e 

wholesomest medicine of diuers hearbs: wherefore it behoueth youth 20 

with all industry to serch not onely the harde questions of the Philosophers, 

but also the fine cases of the Lawiers, not only the quirks and 

quiddities of the Logicians, but also to haue a sight in the numbers 

of the Arithmetricians, the Tryangles and Circles of the Geometricians, 

the Spheere and Globe of the Astrologians, the notes and crochets of 25 

the Musicians, y e odde conceits of the Poets, the simples of the 

Phisicions, and in all thinges, to the ende that when they shal be 

willed to talke of any of them, they may be ignoraunt in nothing. 

He y t [Lyly's addition 

(27 

lines)... 

hath a gardein plot doth aswel sow the pothearb as the Margerom, 

as well the Leeke as the Lyllye, as well the wholesome Isoppe, 30 

as the faire Carnation, the which he doth to the entent he may haue 

wholesome hearbes as well to nurrish his inwarde parts as sweete 

flowers to please his outwarde desire, aswell fruitefull plantes to refresh 

his sences, as fayre shewes to please his sighte. Euen so whosoeuer 

that hath a sharpe and capable witte, let him aswell giue his 35 

minde to sacred knowledge of diuinitie, as to the profounde studye of 

Philosophye, that by his witte he may not onely reape pleasure but 

12 breedeth Crest 18 the A-Monly 23 quillyties A 24 the om. 

C rest Arethmetricians C: Arithmeticians F rest the 2 om. F 30 

Leeks G


profite, not only contentacion in minde, but quyetnesse in conscience. 

I will proceede in the Education. 

I would haue them first of all to follow Philosophies as most 

auncient, yea most excellent, for as it is pleasaunt to passe thorow 

5 many fayre Cities, but most pleasaunt to dwell in the fayrest, euen 

so to reade many Historyes and artes it is pleasaunt but as it were 

to lodge with Philosophy most profitable. 

It was pretely sayd of Eton the Philosopher. Euen as when the 

woers coulde not haue the companye of Penelope they runne to hir 

lohandemaydes: so they that cannot attayne to the knowledge of 

Philosophie, apply their mindes to things most vyle and contemptible. 

Wherefore we must prefer Philosophie, as the onely Princesse 

of all Scyences, and other artes as wayting Maydes. For the curinge 

and keepinge in temper of the bodye, man by his industrye hath 

15 founde two thinges, Phisicke and Exercise, the one cureth sickenesse, 

the other preserueth the body in temper, but there is nothing that 

may heale diseases, or cure the woundes of the minde but onely 

Philosophy. By this shall wee learne what is honest what dishonest, 

what is right what is wrong, and that I maye in one worde say what 

20 may be sayd, what is to be knowen what is to be auoyded, what to 

be embraced, how we ought to obay our parents, reuerence our 

Elders, enterteyne straungers, honour the Magistrates, loue our 

friendes, lyue with our wyues, vse our seruaunts, how we should 

worship God, be dutifull to our fathers, stande in awe of our 

25 superiours, obay lawes, giue place to officers, how we may chuse 

friendes, nurture our children, and that which is most noble how 

we should neyther be too prowde in prosperitie, neyther pensiue in 

aduersitie, neither lyke beasts ouercome with anger. And heere 

I cannot but lament Athens, which hauing ben alwaies y e nurse of 

. 

30 Philosophers, doth now nurrish only y e name of Philosophy. For , 

to speake playnly of y e disorder of Athens, who doth not see it, and 

sorrow at it? such playing at dice, such quaffing of drinke, such 

dalyaunce with woemen, such daunsing, that in my opinion ther is 

no quaffer in Flaunders so giuen to typplynge, no courtier in Italy 

35 so giuen to ryotte, no creature in the worlde so misled as a student 

in Athens. Such a confusion of degrees, that the Scholler knoweth 

not his duetie to the Bachelor, nor the Bachelor to the Maister, nor 

the" Maister to the Doctor. Such corruption of manners, contempt 

1 in 1 ] of E rest 6 it is om. A 9 ranne Trest 17 the 1 om.Erest 20-1 what 3 

... embraced, om. Trest 22 the om Trest 25 Law G rest 28 neythr A 

BOND 1 T 

... 

[Plut.c.10.] 

[Lyly's addition 

[nearly 3 

pages). . .

274 EUPHUES 

of Magistrates, such open sinnes, such priuie villanye, such quarrellynge 

in the streetes, such subtile practises in chambers, as maketh 

my hearte to melt with sorrowe to thinke of it, and shoulde cause 

your mindes gentlemen to bee penitent to remember it. 

Moreouer who doth know a scholler by his habite ? Is there any 5 

hatte of so vnseemely a fashion, any dublette of so long a waste, any 

hose so short, any attire either so costly, or so courtly, eyther so 

straunge in making or so monstrous in wearing, that is not worne 

of a scholler ? haue they not nowe in steede of blacke cloth blacke 

veluet, in steede of course sackecloth fine silke? Be they not more 10 

like courtiers the" schollers, more like stageplayers then studentes, 

more lyke ruffians of Naples then disputers in Athens? I woulde 

to God they did not imitate all other nations in the vice of y e minde 

as they doe in the attire of their body, for certeynelye as there is no 

nation whose fashion in apparel they do not vse, so is there no 15 

wickednesse publyshed in anye place, y t they do not practize. I 

thinke that in Sodom and Gomora, there was neuer more filthinesse, 

neuer more pryde in Rome, more poysoning in Italy, more lyinge in 

Crete, more priuie spoyling in Spayne, more Idolatry in Aegypt, then 

is at this day in Athens, neuer such sectes among the Heathens, such 20 

schismes amongst the Turkes, such mis beleefe among y e Infidells, 

as is now among Schollers. Be ther not many in Athens which 

thincke ther is no God? no redemption? no resurrection? 

What shame is this gentlemen that a place so renowmed for good 

learning, should be so shamed for ill lyuinge ? that where grace doth 25 

abounde, sinne shoulde so superabound ? y t wher y e greatest profession 

of knowledge is, ther should also be y e least practising of 

honestie. I haue read of many Uniuersities, as of Padua in Italy, 

Paris in Fraunce, Wittenberge in Germanie, in England of Oxford 

& Cambridge, which if they were halfe so ill as Athens they were to 30 

to bad, & as I haue heard as they bee, they be starke nought. 

But I can speake the lesse against them, for that I was neuer in 

them, yet can I not chuse but be agrieued, that by report I am enforced 

rather to accuse them of vanitie then excuse them any way. 

Ah gentleme' what is to be looked for, nay what is not to be feared, 35 

when the temple of Vesta where virgins should Hue is lyke the stewes, 

fraight with strompets, when y e Alter where nothinge but sanctitie 

4 bee om. A 7 any twice C 12 in] of G rest 14 their] the 

G rest 15 there is T-I6I3 21 among G rest 23 redmption T 

33 greeued-E 2 rest 37 fraught Trest


and holynesse shoulfte be vsed, is polluted with vncleanenesse, when 

the Uniuersities, of christendome which should be the eies, the lights, 

the leauen, the salt, the seasoning of the world, are dimmed with 

blinde concupiscence, put out with pride and haue lost their sauour 

5 with impietie ? 

Is it not become a bye word amongst the common people, that 

they had rather send their children to the carte, then to the Uniuersitie, 

being induced so to saye, for the abuse that raigneth in the 

Uniuersities, who sending their sonnes to attayne knowledge, finde 

1o them little better learned, but a great deale worst lyued then when 

they went, and not onely vnthriftes of their money, but also banckeroutes 

of good manners : was not this the cause that caused a simple 

woman in Greece to exclaime against Athens, saying. 

The Maister and the Scholler, the Tuter and the Pupill bee bothe 

15 agreede, for the one careth not howe lyttle paine hee taketh for his 

moneye, the other howe little learning. I perceyue that in Athens 

there bee no chaungelinges : When of olde it was sayde to a Lacedemonian, 

that all y e Grecians knew honesty, but not one practised 

it. When Panathcenea were celebrated at Athens, an olde man 

20 going to take a place was mockingly reiected, at the last comming 

among the Lacedemonians all the youth gaue him place, which y e 

Athenians liked well off, then one of the Sparthans cryed out : 

Verily y e Athenians know what should be done, but they neuer 

doe it. 

25 When one of the Lacedemonians had bene for a certeine time in 

Athens seeing nothinge but dauncing, dicinge, banquetinge, surfeytinge, 

and licencious behauiour, retourninge home hee was asked howe 

all things stoode in Athens, to whome hee aunswered, all thinges 

are honest there, meaning that the Athenians accompted all thinges 

30 good, and nothing bad. Howe such abuses should or might be redressed 

in al Uniuersities, especially in Athens, if I were of authoritie 

to commaunde, it should be seene, or of credite to perswade 

those that haue the dealinges wyth them, it should soone be showne. 

And vntill I see better reformation in Athens, my younge Ephabus 

35 shall not be nurtured in Athens. I haue spoken all this that you 

gentlemen might see how y e Philo in Athens practise nothing lesse 

14 Schollers E rest 17 bee] is F1613: are 1617 rest 19 Panthaenea 

M-1613: Panthensea 1617-1636 in G rest 22 Spartans T rest 

30 such] much EF: many 1613 rest 32 soone before be T-G 33 dealing 

E rest 34 Ephaebus A-C 35 all this that] all that E; all, that F rest 

36 Philo] Philosophers Trest, exc. Philosopher 1617, [1623] 

T 2

•••] 

[Plut.c.io, 

resumed 

from p. 

276 EUPHUES 

then Philosophy, what scholler is hee that is scrtealous at his booke 

as Chrisippus, who, had not his maide Melissa thrust meate into 

his mouth hadde perished with famine, beeinge alwaye studying? 

Who so watchfull as Aristotle, who going to bedde woulde haue 

a ball of brasse in his hande, that if hee shoulde bee taken in a 5 

slomber, it might fall and awake hym? No, no, the tymes are 

chaunged as Ouid sayeth, and wee are chaunged in the times, let vs 

endeuour euerye one to amende one, and wee shall all soone bee 

amended, let vs giue no occasion of reproche, and wee shall more 

easily beare the burden of false reportes, and as wee see by learn-10 

inge what wee shoulde doe, so let vs doe as wee learne, then shall 

Athens florishe, then shall the studentes bee had in greate reputation, 

then shall learning haue his hyre, and euerye good scholler his 

hope. But retourne wee once agayne to Philo. 

There is amongst men a trifolde kinde of lyfe, Actiue which is 15 

about ciuill function and administration of the common weale. 

Speculatiue, which is in continuall meditation and studye. The 

thirde a lyfe ledde, moste commonlye a lewde lyfe, an idle and vaine 

lyfe, the lyfe that the Epicures accompte their whole felicitie, a voluptuous 

lyfe replenished with all kinde of vanitie, if this Actiue lyfe be 20 

wythout Philosophy it is an idle lyfe, or at the least a life euil imployed 

which is worse: if the contemplatiue life be seperated from 

the Actiue it is most vnprofitable. I woulde therefore haue my 

youth, so to bestowe his studye, as hee may both bee exercised in 

the common weale, to common profite, and well imployed priuately 25 

for hys owne perfection, so as by his studye the rule hee shall beare 

maye bee directed, and by his gouernment his studye maye bee 

increased: in this manner dyd Pericles deale in ciuill affayres, after 

this sort did Architas the Tarentine, Dion the Syracusian, the Thebane 

[Hut.CM.} Epaminondas gouerne their cities. For y e exercise of the bodye it 30 

is necessary also somewhat bee added, that is that the childe shoulde 

be at such times, permitted to recreate himselfe, when his minde is 

ouercome wyth studie, least dullinge himselfe wyth ouermuche 

industry hee become vnfit afterwarde to conceiue readyly, besides 

this it will cause an apte composition and that naturall strength y t [riut.cn.] 

it 35 

1 so om. E 2 rest 2 in T-GE 2 rest 6 wake E rest 8 all om. 

Erest 11 wee 2 ] we le G 14 Philo so all; contraction for Philosophy 

(cf,p. 375, /. 36 17 in A T only 18 is before a 1 F rest a before vaine E rest, 

except [1623], which reverts to A-G 21 the om. E rest 24 be both T rest 

29 Architas Tarentine A-C 30 Epaminondas E 2 rest: Epiminides AT: 

Epaminidts MC: Epimionndas G: Epiminondas E l 33 dull before dulling E: 

still before dulling F rest 35 disposition E rest that om. C rest


before retayned. A good composition of the body, laieth a good 

foundation of olde age, for as in the fayre Sommer we prepare all 

thinges necessary for the cold Winter, so good manners in youth and 

lawfull exercises be as it were victuals and nourishmentes for age: 

5 yet are their labours and pastimes so to bee tempered that they 

weaken not their bodyes more by playe, then otherwyse they shoulde 

haue done by studye, and so to be vsed that they addict not themselues 

more to the exercise of the limmes then the following of learning 

: the greatest enemies to discipline as Plato recompteth, are 

10 labours & sleepe. It is also requisite that hee bee expert in marciall 

affayres, in shooting, in darting, that he hawke and hunt, for his 

honest pastime and recreation, and if after these pastimes hee shall 

seeme secure, nothinge regardinge his bookes, I would not haue him 

scourged w t stripes, but threatned with words, not dulled with blowes, 

15 like seruaunts the which the more they are beaten the better they 

beare it, and the lesse they care for it, for children of good disposition 

are either incited by praise to goe forwarde, or shamed by dispraise 

to commit the like offence: those of obstinate & blockish behauiour, 

are neither with words to be perswaded, neither with stripes 

20 to be corrected. They must now be tauted with sharp rebukes, 

straight wayes admonished with faire wordes, nowe threatned a paiment, 

by and by promised a reward, & dealt withall as nurses doe 

with the babes, whom after they haue made to cry, they profer the 

teate. But diliget heede must be taken y t he be not praised aboue 

2 5 measure, least standing to much in his owne conceite, he become 

also obstinate in his owne opinions. I haue knowen many fathers 

whose great loue towards their sonnes hath bene the cause in time 

that they loued them not, for when they see a sharpe witte in their 

sonne to conceiue, for the desire they haue that hee shoulde out 

30 runne his fellowes, they loaden him with continuall exercise, which 

is the onely cause that hee sincketh vnder his burden, and giueth 

ouer in the playne fielde. Plants are nurrished with lyttle rayne, yet 

drowned with much, euen so the minde with indifferent labour 

waxeth more perfect, with much studie it is made fruitelesse. We 

35 must consider that all our lyfe is deuided into remission and study. 

As there is watchinge, so is there sleepe, as there is warre, so is 

there peace, as there is Winter, so is there Sommer, as there be many 

2 repaire CG 4 nourishment E rest 12 all before these Grest '17 

inticed E rest ashamed E rest 23 the 1 ] their C rest 25 becommeth 

E 26 also om. E rest 30 loade G rest 31 his] the E rest 

34 ouer-much G rest 

[Plut.c.12.] 

[Plut.c.13.]

278 EUPHUES 

working dayes, so is there also many holydayes, & if I may speake 

all in one worde, ease is the sauce of labour, which is playnely to be 

seene not onely in lyuing thinges, but also in things without lyfe: 

We vnbende the bowe that wee maye the better bende him, wee 

vnloose the harpe that we may the sooner tune him, the body is 5 

kept in health aswell with fasting as eating, the mindfc healed with 

ease aswell as with labour. Those parents are in minde to be mislyked 

which committe the whole care of their childe to the custody 

of a hirelyng, neyther askinge neither knowing how their children 

profite in lerning. For if the father were desirous to examine his 10 

sonne in that which he hath learned, the mayster woulde bee more 

carefull what he did teach. But seeinge the father carelesse what 

they learne, he is also secure what he teacheth. -That notable saying 

of ye Horsekeeper maye heere be applyed which sayde, (nothinge did 

so fatte the horse as the eye of the King) Moreouer I woulde haue 15 

the memorye of children continually to be exercised, which is the 

greatest furtheraunce to learninge that can be. 

For this cause they fayned in their olde fables memory to be the 

mother of perfection. Children are to be chastised if they shal vse 

any filthy or vnseemly talke, for as Democrates sayth, the worde is20 

the shadowe of the worke: they must be courteous in their behauiour, 

lowely in their speach, not disdayning their cockmates or 

refrayning their company: they must not lyue wantonly, neyther 

speake impudently, neyther be angry without cause, neyther quarellous 

without colour. A young man beeing peruerse in nature, & 25 

proude in words and manners, gaue Socrates a spurne, who beeing 

moued by his fellowes to giue him an other: If sayd Socrates an 

Asse had kicked me, woulde you also haue me to kicke him againe ? 

the great wisedome in Socrates in compressing his anger is worthy 

great commendacion. Architas y e [Plut.c.14.] 

Tarentine retourning from warre 30 

and finding his grounde ouergrowen with weedes and tourned vp 

with Mowles, sent for his Farmour vnto whome hee sayde: If I were 

not angrye I woulde make thee repent thy ill husbandry. Plato 

hauing a seruaunt whose blisse was in fillyng of his belly, seeinge 

him on a time idle and vnhonest in behauiour, sayd, Out of my 35 

sighte, for I am incensed with anger. 

Althoughe these ensamples be harde to imitate, yet shoulde euery 

2 ease] easie C 4 him] it E rest 6 with before eating E 2 rest 7 my 

before minde G rest 8 their] the E rest 14 be heere C rest 19 shal 

om. G rest 24 be om. A-C 25 colour] choler A 29 greatest A-C 

suppressing G rest 30 y e om. A-C


man do his endeuour to represse that hot and heady humor which 

he is by nature subiecte vnto. To be silent and discreete in companye, 

thoughe manye thinke it a thing of no great wayghte or importaunce, 

yet is it most requisite for a young man and most necessary for 

5 my Ephoebus. It neuer hath bene hurtefull to any to holde his peace, 

to speake, damage to manye : what so is kept in silece is husht, but 

whatsoeuer is babbled out cannot agayne be recalled. We maye see [Inserted 

the cunning and curious worke of Nature, which hath barred and from Plut. 

De Garrul. 

hedged nothing in so stronglye as the tongue, with two rowes of ' (25 lines) 

10 teeth, therewith two lyppes, besides she hath placed it farre from the 

hearte, that it shoulde not vtter that which the hearte had concerned, 

this also shoulde cause vs to be silente, seeinge those that vse much 

talke though they speake truely are neuer beleeued. Wyne therefore 

is, to be refrayned which is termed to be| the glasse of the 

15 minde, and it is an olde Prouerbe Whatsoeuer is in the heart of 

the sooer man, is in the mouth of the drunckarde. Bias holding 

his tongue at a feast, was tearmed there of a tatler to bee a foole, 

who sayde, is there any wise man that can holde his tongue 

amidst the wine? vnto whome Bias aunswered, there is no foole 

20 that can. 

A certeyne gentleman heere in Athens, inuited the Kings Legates 

to a costly and sumptuous feast, where also he assembled many 

Philosophers, and talking of diuers matters both of the common 

weale and learning, onely Zeno sayd nothing. Then the ambassadors 

25 said, what shall wee shewe of thee 0 Zeno to the king. Nothing 

aunswered hee, but that there is an olde man in Athens that amiddest 

the pottes coulde holde his peace. Anacharsis suppinge 

with Solon, was founde a sleepe, hauing his right hande before his 

mouth, his lefte vpon his priuities, wherby was noted that the tongue 

30 should be rayned with the strongest bridle. Zeno bicause hee 

woulde not be enforced to reueale any thinge agaynst his will by 

torments, bitte of his tongue and spit it in the face of the Tyraunt. ...] 

Nowe when children shall by wisedome and vse refrayne from 

ouer much tatlyng, lette them also be admonished that when they 

35 shall speake, they speake nothing but truth: to lye is a vyce most 

detestable, not to be suffered in a slaue, much lesse in a sonne. 

But the greatest thinge is yet behinde, whether that those are to bee [Plut.c.15.] 

3 or] and E rest 4 it is G rest 5 Ephsebus A-M: Phoebus E 1 

It had beene neuer F: It hath beene neuer 1613 rest 6 so om. E rest 7 

blabbed E rest 9 in nothing G rest 10 & before therewith T rest 24 

Embassador EF 29 and before his 1 G rest 32 spet E rest

[Plut.c.16.] 

28o EUPHUES 

admitted as cockemates with children which loue them entirely, or 

whether they bee to bee banished from them. 

When as I see manye fathers more cruell to their children then 

carefull of them, which thincke it not necessarye to haue those about 

them, that most tender them, then I am halfe as it were in a doubte 5 

to giue counsell. But when I call to my remembraunce Socrates, 

Plato, Xenophon, Esckines, Scebetes, and all those that so much commende 

the loue of men, which haue also brought vpp many to great 

rule, reason and pietie, then I am encouraged to imitate those whose 

excellencie doth warrant my precepts to be perfect. If any shall 10 

loue the childe for his comely countenaunce, him woulde I haue to 

be banished as a most daungerous and infectious beast, if hee shall 

loue him for his fathers sake, or for his own good qualyties, him 

would I haue to be with him alwayes as superuisour of hys manners : 

such hath it bene in times past the loue of one Athenian to the 15 

other, and of one Lacedemonian to the other. 

But hauing sayde almost sufficient for the education of a childe, 

I will speake two words, how he should be trayned when he groweth 

in yeares. I can not but mislyke the nature of diuers parentes which 

appoynte ouerseers and tutours for their children in their tender 20 

age, and suffer them when they come to be young men, to haue 

the bridle in theire owne hande, knowing not that age requireth 

rather a harde snaffle then a pleasant bit, and is sooner allured to 

wickednesse then childehood. Who knoweth not the escapes of 

children, as they are small so they are soone amended? eyther 35 

with threates they ar to be remedied or with faire promisses 

to be rewarded. But the sinnes and faults of young men are 

almost or altogether intollerable, which giue thgselues to be 

delycate in their dyet, prodigall in their expence, vsing dicing, 

dauncing, dronkennesse, deflowring of virgins, abusing wyues, com- 30 

mitting adulteries, and accounting all things honest, that are most 

detestable. Heere therefore must be vsed a due regarde that theire 

lust may be repressed, their ryot abated, their courage cooled, for hard 

it is to see a young man to bee maister of himselfe which yeldeth 

himselfe as it were a bonde slaue, to fonde and ouerlashinge affections. 35 

Wise parentes ought to take good heede, especially at this time, y t 

they frame their sonnes to modesty, eyther by threats or by rewardes, 

5 am I C rest 6 mo remembrsunce T 10 perfect] true G rest 15 

it om. F rest 16 of om. G rest 18 or three after two E rest 24 

escapes so all 25 they are 3 ] are they C rest 29 expences E rest 32 

detestable] bad and abhominable E rest

AND HIS EPHGEBUS 281 

either by faire promises or seuere practises, eyther shewinge the 

miseries of those that haue ben ouercome with wildenesse, or the 

happinesse of the that haue conteined themselues wythin the bandes 

of reason: these two are as it were the ensignes of vertue, the hope 

5 of honour, the feare of punishment. But chiefly parents must cause 

their youths to abandon the societie of those which are noted of euill 

liuing & lewde behauiour, which Pithagoras seemed somewhat 

obscurely to note in these his sayinges. 

First, that one should absteine from the tast of those thinges that 

10 haue blacke tayles. That is, we must not vse the companye of 

those whose corrupt manners doo as it were make their lyfe blacke. 

Not to goe aboue the ballaunce, that is, to reuerence Iustice, neyther 

for feare or flattery to leane to any one parcially. Not to lye in idlenesse, 

that is, that sloth shoulde bee abhorred: That wee should 

15 not shake euery man by the hande: That is, wee should not contract 

friendshippe wyth all: Not to weare a straite ringe: That is 

that we should leade our life so as wee neede not to fetter it wyth 

cheynes: Not to bring fire to a slaughter: That is, wee must not 

prouoke anye that is furious wyth wordes : Not to eate our heartes: 

20 That is, that wee shoulde not. vexe our selues wyth thoughtes, 

consume our bodyes with sighes, wyth sobbes, or with care to 

pine our carcasses: To absteine from beanes, that is, not to meddle 

in ciuill affayres or businesse of the common weale, for in the 

olde times the election of magistrates was made by the pullinge 

25 of beanes: Not to put our meate in Scapio: That is wee shoulde 

not speake of manners or vertue, to those whose mindes are infected 

with vice. Not to retire when wee are come to the ende of our race. 

That is, when wee are at the poynte of deathe, wee shoulde not be 

oppressed wyth griefe, but willingly yelde to nature. But I will 

30 retourne to my former preceptes, that is, that younge men shoulde 

bee kept from the company of those that are wicked, especially from 

the sight of the flatterer. For I say now as I haue oftentimes before 

sayde, that there is no kinde of beast so noysome as the flatterer, 

nothing that will sooner consume bothe the sonne and the Father 

35 and all honest friendes. When the Father exhorteth the sonne to 

sobrietye, the flatterer prouoketh hym to wine, when the Father 

3 contented GE: Frest restore conteined 6 youth G rest 13 vnto 

T rest lye] liue G rest 14 that is, that] is, that that G: is, that E rest 

15 wee] that we G rest 17 to om. CG 18 a] the Grest That is,] 

is, that G rest 23-4 in old time E rest 24 the 2 om. G rest 26 vertues 

C rest be G rest 

[Plut.c.17.]

282 EUPHUES 

weaneth them to continencie, the flatterer allureth them to lust, 

When the Father admonisheth them to thrifte, the flatterer haleth them 

to prodigallitye, when the Father encourageth them to labour, the 

flatterer layeth a cusshion vnder his eldbowe to sleepe, biddinge them 

to eate, drincke, and bee merry, for that the lyfe of man is soone 5 

gone, and but as a short shadowe, and seeinge that wee haue but 

a whyle to lyue, who woulde lyue lyke a seruaunt ? they saye that 

nowe their Fathers bee olde and doate through age lyke Saturnus. 

Heerof it cometh y t young men giuing not onely attentiue eare 

but redy coyne to flatterers fall into such mysfortune, heereof it pro-10 

ceedeth that they haunt the stewes, marry before they be wyse, and 

dye before they thriue. These be the beasts which Hue by y e 

trenchers of younge gentlemen, & consume the treasures of their 

reuenewes, these be they that soothe younge youthes in their owne 

sayinges, that vpholde them in al theyr dooinges with a yea, or nay, 15 

these be they that are at euery becke, at euery nod, freemen by 

fortune, slaues by free wil. Wherfore if there be any Father that 

would haue his children nurtured and brought vp in honestye, let 

[L's add. Il..] him expell these Panthers, which haue a sweete smell but a deuour- 

[Plut.c.i8.] inge minde: yet woulde I not haue parentes altogether precise, or 20 

to seuere in correction, but let them wyth mildenesse forgyue light 

offences, and remember that they themselues haue bene younge, as 

the Phisition by minglinge bitter poysons with sweete liquor, bringeth 

healthe to the body, so the Father with sharpe rebukes seasoned 

with louing lookes, causeth a redresse and amendement in his childe. 25 

But if the Father bee throughly angry vpon good occasion, let him 

not continue his rage, for I had rather he should be soone angry 

then harde to be pleased, for when the sonne shall perceiue that the 

Father hathe conceyued rather a hate then a heate againste him, he 

becommeth desperate, neyther regarding his fathers ire, neither his 30 

owne duetie. Some light faults let them dissemble as though they 

knewe them not, & seeing them let them not seeme to see them, & 

hearing them let them not seeme to heare. We can easily forget the 

offences of our friendes be they neuer so great, and shall wee not 

forgyue the escapes of our children be they neuer so small ? We 35 

[lyly's [Lyly's add. 

beare oftentimes with our seruaunts and shall we not somtimes with 

(3 lines) lines)... 

• • • our sonnes ; the fairest Iennet is ruled as well with the wand as 

1 warneth G rest them 1 ] him E rest them 2 ] him C rest 2 them (both)] him 

E rest 3 him E rest 4 him G rest 5 and to be Trest, but G misprints 

and to mee 7 lyue 2 doe G rest 14 their owne] al their T rest 15 a before 

nay, T rest, except [1623] 17 fathers A-C 25 his] the G rest 27 had om, G


With the spurre, the wildest childe is assoone corrected with a word as 

w t a weapon. If thy sonne be so stubborne obstinately to rebel 

against thee, or so wilful to perseuer in his wickednes, y t neither for 

feare of punishmgt, neither for hope of reward, he is any way to 

5 be reclaimed, then seeke out some marriage fit for his degree which 

is y e surest bond of youth, & the strogest chain to fetter affections y t 

can be found. Yet let his wife be such a one as is neither much 

more noble in birth, or farre more richer in goodes, but according to 

the wyse saying: choose one euery way, as neere as may bee equall 

10 in both: for they that doe desire greate dowries doe rather marrye 

themselues to the wealth, then to their wife. But to retoume to the 

matter, it is most requisite, that Fathers both by their discreet counsaile, 

and also their honest conuersation, bee an ensampie of imitation 

to their children, that they seeinge in their parentes as it were in 

15 a glasse the perfection of manners, they maye bee encouraged by 

their vpright liuinge, to practise the lyke pietie: for if a Father 

rebuke his childe of swearinge, and hee himselfe a blasphemor, doth 

he not see, that in detecting his sonnes vice, he also noteth his 

owne. If the father counsayle the sonne to refraine wine, as most 

20 vnholesome, and drincke himselfe immoderately, doth hee not as 

well reproue his owne folly, as rebuke hys sonnes? Age alway 

ought to bee a much for youth, for where olde age is impudent 

there certeinly you needs shamelesse, where the aged haue 

no respect of the rable' and graye haires, there the younge 

25 gallauntes haue little regarde of their honest behauiour, & in one word 

to conclude al, wher age is past grauitie, there youth is past grace. 

The sum of all wherewith I would haue my Ephoebus endued, & how 

I would haue him instructed, shall briefly appeare in this following. 

First, that he be of honest parents, nursed of his mother, brought vp in 

such a place as is incorrupt both for y e aire & manners, wyth such a 

person as is vndefiled, of great zeale, of profounde knowledge, of absolute 

perfection, that he bee instructed in Philosophy, whereby hee may 

atteyne learninge, and haue in al sciences a smacke, whereby he 

maye readily dispute of any thing. That his body be kept in his pure 

35 strength by honest exercise, hys witte and memory, by diligent study. 

That he abandon all allurements of vice, and continually enclyne 

to vertue, which if it shall as it may come to passe, then doe I hope 

8 more 1 om. EF, hence rest have much nobler 12 founsayle T 13 also 

their om. Grest 14 they] hee A 16 right E rest 17 for G rest 

18 detesting F rest 19 the 2 ] his G rest 27 Ephxbus A-M 30 not 

incorrupt E 1 32 he om. A-C 33 smcake A 36 all twice G 

...] 

[Ptut.c.19.] 

[Plut.c. 20 

first half.] 

[From here 

to end,i.e.to 

/. 286,/. 22, 

all is Lyly's 

addition,

284 EUPHUES 

that if euer Platoes common weale shall flourish, that my Ephatbus 

shall be a Citizen, that if Aristotle fined any happye man it will bee 

my childe, if Tullye confesse anye to bee an absolute Orator, it will 

be my young youth. I am heere therefore gentlemen to exhort you, 

that with all industry you apply your mindes to the studie of Philo- 5 

sophye, that as you professe your selues students, so you maye bee 

students, that as you disdayne not the name of a scholler, so you wii 

not be found voyde of the duetie of schollers: let not your minds be 

carried away with vayn delyghts, as with trauayling into far and 

straunge country es where you shal see more wickednesse, then learne 10 

vertue and witte. Neyther with costlye attire of the new cutte, the 

Dutch hatte, the French hose, the Spanish rapier, the Italian hike, 

and I know not what Cast not your eyes on the beautie of woemen, 

leaste ye cast away your heartes with folly, let not that fonde loue, 

wherewith youthe fatteth himselfe as fatte as a foale, infect you, for 15 

as a sinew beeing cut though it be healed there will alwayes remayne 

a scarre, or as fine lynnen stayned with blacke incke, though it be 

washed neuer so often, will haue an yron mowle, so y e minde once 

mangled or maymed with loue, though it be neuer so well cured 

with reason, or cooled by wisedome, yet there will appeare a scar by 20 

y e which one may gesse the minde hath bene pierced, and a blemish 

whereby one maye iudge the hearte hathe be tayned. 

Refrayne from dyeing which was one that Pyrrhus was 

striken to the hearte, and from dauricirig as the meanes y t 

lost John Baptists head. I am not hee that will disallow honest 25 

recreation, although I detest the abuses, I speake boldely vnto you 

bicause I my selfe know you: what Athens hath bene, what Athens 

is, what Athens shalbe I can gesse. Let not euery Inne and Alehouse 

in Athens be as it were your chamber, frequent not those 

ordinarie tables wher eyther for the desire of delycate cates, or the 3° 

meetinge of youthefull companions, yee both spende your money 

vaynely and your time idly. Imitate him in lyfe whom ye honour 

for his learning, Aristotle, who was neuer seene in the company of 

those that idelly bestowed their time. 

There is nothing more swifter then time, nothinge more sweeter: 35 

we haue not as Seneca sayth lyttle tyme to lyue, but wee leese much, 

neyther haue wee a shorte lyfe by Nature, but we make it shorter by 

1 Ephæbus A-C 2 fined not corrected to finde till 1613 7 a scholler] Schollers 

E rest 14 hart E rest 23 Pyrrhus—/ correct Pyreus of all preceding eds. (see 

note) 28 should be E rest 30 the om, Crest 32 ye] you seeme to Crest


i 

naughtmes: our lyfe is long if we know how to vse it.} Followe 

Appelks that cunning and wise Painter, which would lette no day 

passe ouer his heade without a lyne, without some labour. It was 

pretely sayde of Hesiodas, lette vs indeauour by reason to excell 

5 beastes, seeinge beastes by nature excell men, although strickely 

taken it be not so, for that man is endewed with a soule, yet taken 

touching their perfection of sences in their kinde it is most certeine. 

Doth not the Lyon for strengthe, the Turtle for loue, the Ante for 

labour excell man? Doth "not the Eagle see cleerer, the Uulter 

ro smell better, the Mowle heare lyghtlyer ? lette vs therefore endeuour 

to excell in vertue seeing in qualyties of the body we are inferiour to 

beastes. And heere I am most earnestly to exhort you to modestie 

in your behauiour, to duetie to your elders, to dilygence in your 

studyes. I was of late in Italy, where mine eares gloed and my 

15 hearte was gauled to heare the abuses that reygne in Athens : I can 

not tell whether those things sprange by the lewde and lying lyppes 

of the ignoraunt, which are alwayes enemyes to learning, or by the 

reportes of such as saw them and sorrowed at them. It was openly 

reported of an olde man in Naples that there was more lyghtnes in 

20 Athens, then in all Italy, more wanton youths of schollers, then in al 

Europe besides, more Papistes, more Atheists, more sectes, more 

schismes, then in all the Monarchies of the world, which things 

although I thinke they be not true, yet can I not but lament that 

they shoulde be deemed to bee true, and I feare me they be not 

25 altogether false, there can no greate smoke aryse but there must 

be some fire, no great reporte without great suspition. Frame therefore 

your Hues to such integretie, your studies to the attayning of such 

perfection that neyther the mighte of the strong, neyther the mallyce 

of the weake, neyther the swifte reportes of the ignoraunte be able to 

30 spotte you with dishonestie or note you of vngodlynesse. The 

greatest harme that you can doe vnto the enuious, is to doe well, the 

greatest corasiue that you can giue vnto the ignoraunt, is to prosper 

in knowledge, the greatest comforte that you can ,bestowe on your 

parents is to lyue well, and learne well, the greatest commoditie that 

35 you can yeelde vnto your countrey, is with wisedome to bestow that 

talente, that by grace was giuen you. 

2 and wise om. E rest 4 Hesiodus F-1617, 1631,1636: Hesodus [1623] 

5 strickely AMT; strictly C rest (cf.p. 271, /. 31) 10 beare lighter EF; heare 

lighter 1613 rest 11 qualitie E rest are] be C rest 14 glowed 1613 

rest 15 raigned E rest 20 in 2 om. E 22 Monarches TM of] 

in T-G 34 to before learne E rest 36 vnto before you £ rest

286 EUPHUES 

And heere I cannot chuse but giue you that counsell, that an olde 

man in Naples gaue me most wiselye, althoughe I hadde then neyther 

grace to followe it, neyther will to giue eare to it, desiringe you not 

to reiecte it bicause I dyd once dispise it. It is this as I can remember 

worde for worde. 5 

Descende into your owne conscyences, consider with your selues 

the greate difference betweene staringe and starke blynde, witte and 

wisedome, loue and lust: bee merrye but with modestie, bee sober 

but not too sullen, be valyaunte but not too venterous, lette your 

attire be comely but not too costly, your dyet wholesome, but not 10 

excessiue, vse pastime as the worde importeth, to passe the time in 

honeste recreation. Mistrust no man without cause, neyther be ye 

credulous without proofe, be not lyght to follow euery mans opinion, 

neither obstinate to stande in your owne conceits, serue God, feare 

God, loue God, & God wil blesse you, as eyther your heartes can 15 

wish, or your friendes desire. This was his graue and godly aduise 

whose councell I woulde haue you all to follow, frequent lectures, vse 

disputations openly, neglect not your priuate studyes, let not degrees 

be giuen for loue, but for learning, not for mony but for knowledge, 

and bicause you shall bee the better encouraged to follow my 20 

counsell, I will bee as it were an example my selfe, desiring you all 

to imitate me. 

Euphues hauing ended his discourse, & finished those preceptes 

which he thought necessary for the instructing of youthe, gaue his 

minde to the continuall studye of Philosophie, insomuch as he became 25 

publyque Reader in the Uniuersitie, with such commendacion as 

neuer any before him, in the which he continued for the space of 

tenne yeares, onely searching out the secrets of Nature & the hidden 

misteries of Philosophy, & hauing collected into three volumes his 

lectures, thought for the profite of young schollers to sette them 30 

forth in print, which if hee had done, I would also in this his 

Anatomie haue inserted, but hee alteringe his determination, fell into 

this discourse with himselfe. 

Why Euphues art thou so addicted to the studye of the Heathen 

that thou hast forgotten thy God in Heauen ? shal thy witte be rather 35 

employed to the attaining of humayne wisedome then deuine know- 

4 was this M; was thus C rest 9 too 1 om. G rest 12 you Ex thou 

Frest 14 conceit E rest 15 so before blesse C rest 18 neclecte A 

24 instructing.A T: instruction M rest 32 Anatomie M rest: Notomie A : 

Anotomie T former before determination E rest 34 What E rest 35 

rather be G rest


ledge? Is Aristotle more deare to thee with his bookes, then 

Christ with his bloude? What comfort canst thou finde in 

Philosophy for thy guiltie conscience, what hope of the resurrection, 

what gladde tidinges of the Gospell? Consider with thy 

5 selfe that thou art a gentleman, yea, and a Gentile, and if thou 

neglect thy calling thou art worse then a lewe. Most miserable 

is the estate of those gentlemen which thincke it a blemishe to 

their auncestours, and a blot to their owne gentrie to reade or 

practize diuinitie. They thincke it nowe sufficient for their felicitie 

10 to ryde well vppon a greate horse, to hawke, to hunt, to haue 

a smacke in Philosophye, neyther thincking of the beginninge of 

wisedome, neyther the ende which is Christe : onely they accompte 

diuinitie most contemptible, which is and ought to be most notable. 

Without this there is no Lawyer bee hee neuer so eloquent, no 

15 Phisition bee he neuer so excellent, no Philosopher be hee neuer so 

learned, no King no Keyser, be he neuer so royal in birth, so politique 

in peace, so expert in war, so valiaunt in prowesse, but he is to 

bee detested, and abhorred. Farewell therefore the fine and filed 

phrases of Cicero, the pleasaunt Eligies of Ouid, the depth and pro- 

20 found knowledge of Aristotle. Farewell Rhetoricke, farewell Philosophic, 

farewell all leaminge which is not spronge from the bowels of 

the holy Bible. 

In this learning shal we finde milke for the weake, and marrowe for 

the stronge, in this shall wee see how the ignoraunt may be instructed, 

25 the obstinate confuted, the penitent comforted, the wicked punished, y e 

godly preserued. Oh I would gentlemen would some times sequester 

themselues from their own delights, & employ their wits in searching 

these heauenly and diuine misteries. It is common, yea, and 

lamentable to see that if a younge youth haue the giftes of Nature, 

30 as a sharpe witte or of Fortune, as sufficient wealthe to mainteine 

them gallauntly, hee employeth the one in the vaine inuentions of 

loue, the other in y e vile brauery of pride, the one in the passions of 

hys mynde and prayses of his Ladye, the other in furnishinge of his 

bodye and furtheringe of his lust. Heereof it commeth that such 

35 vayne ditties, such idle sonnets, suche inticinge songes, are sette 

foorth to the gaze of the worlde and griefe of the godlye. I my selfe 

knowe none so ill as my selfe, who in tymes past haue bene so super- 

3 thy] the F rest 5 gentlemen A 19 phrases TMC; prases A : phrase 

G rest Eligies EF: Eligues A-G; Elegies 1613 rest 26 semetimes A 

31 them] him E 2 rest gallauntly A only 33 prayses] promises E rest

288 EUPHUES 

stitiously addicted, that I thought no heauen to the Paradise of loue, 

no Angell to bee compared to my Ladye, but as repentaunce hath 

caused mee to leaue and loath such vayne delightes, so wisedome 

hath opened vnto me the perfect gate to eternall lyfe. 

Besides this I my selfe haue thought that in diuinitie there coulde 5 

bee no eloquence, which I myght imitate, no pleasaunt inuention 

whiche I might followe, no delicate phrase, that myght delyght mee, 

but nowe I see that in the sacred knowledge of Gods wyll, the onely 

eloquence, the true and perfect phrase, the testimony of saluation 

doth abide : and seeing without this, all learninge is ignoraunce, all 10 

wysdome meere folly, and wytte playne bluntnesse, all Iustice 

iniquytie, all eloquence barbarisme, all beautie deformytye; I wyll 

spend all the remainder of my lyfe, in studying the olde testament, 

wherein is prefigured the comming of my sauiour, and the newe 

testament, wherein my Christ doth suffer for my sinnes, and is 15 

crucified for my redemption, whose bitter agonies shoulde cast euery 

good Christian into a shieueringe ague, to remember his anguishe, 

whose sweatinge of water and bloud should cause euery deuoute and 

zealous Catholique, to shedde teares of repentaunce in remembraunce 

of his tormentes. 20 

Euphues, hauing discoursed this wyth himselfe, dyd immediatly 

abandon all lyght companye, all the dysputations in schooles, all 

Philosophy, and gaue hymselfe to the touchstone of holinesse in 

diuinitie, accomptinge all other thinges as most vyle and contemptible. 

25 

II Euphues to the Gentlemen schollers 

in Athens. 

T 

t 

He Merchat that trauaileth for gaine, the husbandman y 

toyleth for encrese, the Lawyer that pleadeth for golde, the 

craftes man that seeketh to Hue by his labour, all these after they 30 

haue fatted themselues with sufficient, either take their ease or lesse 

paine the they were accustomed. Hippomanes ceased to runne 

when he had gotten the goale, Hercules to labour, when he had 

obtained the victorie, Mercurie to pipe when he had cast Argus in 

a slumber. Euery action hath his ende, and then wee leaue to sweate 35 

5 coulde] might E rest 11 meere] more ATM and] all T rest 

21 thus G rest 22-3 schooles, all Philosophy A-C ( TM misspelling Philosoplie): 

Schooles of Philosophic G rest 32 Hippomanes so all, again Part II, passim 

33 he 1 ] shee E rest

TO THE GENTLEMEN SCHOLLERS IN ATHENS 289 

when wee haue founde the sweete. The Ant though shee toyle in 

Sommer, yet in Winter she leaueth to trauayle. The Bee though 

she delight to sucke the fayre flower, yet is she at laste cloyed wyth 

honny. The Spider that weaueth the finest threede ceaseth at the 

5 last, when she hath finished hir web. But in the action and study 

of the minde (gentlemen) it is farre otherwise, for he that tasteth the 

sweete of learninge endureth all the sower of labour. Hee that 

seeketh y e depth of knowledge is as it were in a Laborinth, in which 

the farther he goeth, the farther he is from the end : or like the bird 

10 in the limebush which the more she striueth to get out, y e faster she 

sticketh in. And certeinly it may be said of learning, as it was 

fained of Nectar y e drinck of the Gods the which the more it was 

dronck, the more it would ouerflow the brimme of the cup, neither 

is it farre vnlike the stone that groweth in the riuer of Carta, the 

15 whiche the more it is cutte, the more it encreaseth. And it fareth 

with him y t followeth it as with him that hath the dropsie, who the 

more he drincketh the more he thirsteth. Therefore in my minde 

the student is at lesse ease then the Oxe that draweth, or the Asse 

that carrieth his burthen, who neither at the boord when others eate 

20 is voide of labour, neither in his bed when others sleepe is without 

meditation. But as in manuary craftes though they bee all good, yet 

that is accompted most noble, that is most necessary, so in the 

actions and studies of the minde although they be all worthy, yet 

that deserueth greatest praise which bringeth greatest profit. And so 

25 we commonly do make best accompt of that which doth vs most 

good. We esteeme better of the Phisition that ministreth the potion, 

then of the Apoticarie that selleth the drugges. 

Howe much more ought we with all diligence, studye, and industry, 

spende our short pilgrimage in the seeking out of our saluation. 

30 Vaine is Philosophye, vaine is Phisicke, vaine is Law, vaine is all 

Learning wythout the tast of diuine knowledge. I was determined 

to write notes of Philosophy, which had bene to feede you fat wyth 

follye, yet that I might seeme neyther idle, neyther you euill imployed, 

I haue heere set downe a briefe discourse which of late 

35 I haue had wyth an hereticke which kept mee from idlenesse, and 

maye if you reade it deterre you from heresie. It was wyth an 

3 laste] the last E rest 4 the Honny C-1631 8-9 which the] the which 

y*Trest 10 she 2 om. E 1 14 Curia E rest 20 without] voyd of C rest 

22 accounted CG; counted E rest 25 the before best E rest account 

C rest 29 to before spende C rest 31 toste G 

BOND 1 

U

29o EUPHUES 

Atheysty a man in opinion monstrous, yet tractable to be perswaded. 

By thys shall you see the absurde dotage of hym that thincketh 

there is no God, or an vnsufficient God, yet heere shall you finde the 

summe of faith, which iustifyeth onely in Christ, the weakenesse of 

the law, the strengthe of the Gospell, and the knowledge of Gods 5 

will. Heere shall yee finde hope if ye be in dispaire, comfort if ye 

be distressed, if ye thirst drincke, meate if ye hunger. If ye feare 

Moses who sayth, without you fulfill the law you shall perish: 

beholde Christ which sayth, I haue ouercommen the lawe. And 

that in these desperate dayes wherein so may sectes are sowen, and 10 

in the wayning of the world, wherein so many false Christes are 

come, you mighte haue a certeyntie of your saluation, I meane to 

sette downe the towchestone wherevnto euerye one oughte to trust, 

and by the which euerye one shoulde try himselfe, which if you followe, 

I doubte not but that as you haue proued learned Philosophers, 15 

you will also proceede excellent diuines, which God graunt. 

1 in] in my T-G: in mine E rest 2 you shall E-1613: you may 1617-1636 

3 yet] yea 1613-36 6 yee] you E rest ye 1 ] you T rest ye 2 ] you 

C rest 7 ye 1 ] you C rest, exc, thou F ye 2 ] you E rest ye 3 ] you E 2 rest 

9 ouercoramed G; ouer-come E rest 10 and] as E rest 15 that but C 1 , 

corr. C 2

A 

1 EVPHVES AND 

ATHEOS 

Theos. I am gladde Euphues that I haue founde thee at 

leasure, partly that we might be merry, and partly that I 

5 mighte bee perswaded in a thinge that much troubleth my conscience. 

It is concerning God. There bee manye that are of this 

minde, that there is a God whom they tearme the creator of all 

things, a God whom they call the sonne the redeemer of the worlde, 

a God whome they name the holy Ghost, the worker of all thinges, 

10 the comforter, the spirite, and yet are they of this opinion also, that 

they be but one God, coequall in power, coeternal, incomprehensible, 

& yet a Trinitie in person. I for my parte although I am not so 

credulous to beleeue their curious opinions, yet am I desirous to 

heare the reasons that should driue them into such fonde and fren- 

15 ticke imaginations. For as I know nothing to be so absurde which 

some of the Philosophers haue not defended, so thinke I nothing so 

erronious which some of our Catholickes haue not maynteyned. If 

there were, as diuers dreame, a God that would reuenge the oppression 

of the widdowes and fatherlesse, that would rewarde the zeale 

20 of the mercifull, pittie the poore and pardon the penitent, then 

woulde the people eyther stande in greater awe, or owe more loue 

towards their God. 

I remember Tullye disputinge of the nature of Gods, bringeth 

Dionisius as a scoffer of such vayne and deuised Deities, who seeinge 

25 Aesculapius with a longe bearde of golde, and Apollo his father 

beardelesse, played the Barbar and shaued it from him, saying, it was 

not decent that the sonne shoulde haue a bearde and the father 

none. Seeing also Iupiter with an ornament of golde tooke it from 

him iesting thus, In Summer this aray is too heauie, in Winter 

30 too colde, heere I leaue one of wollen, both warmer for the colde 

and lyghter for the heat. He comming also into y e Temple wher 

certeyne of the gods with golden giftes stretched out their handes, 

tooke them all away saying, Who will bee so madde as to refuse 

thinges so gentlye offered. 

4 we] I E rest 5 troubled TMC 10 they arc E rest 11 coeternal om. 

E rest 14 vnto G rest franticke T rest 21 or] and CG 24 Deities] 

deuises E rest 30 warme C 33 all om, E? rest 

U2

292 EUPHUES 

Dost thou not see Euphues what small accompt hee made of their 

gods, for at y e last sayling into his countrey with a prosperous winde, 

he laughing sayde, loe see you not my Maysters, how well the Gods 

rewarde our Sacriledge. I coulde rehearse infinite opinions of excellent 

men who in this poynte holde on my side, but especiallye Prota- 5 

goras. And in my iudgement if there be any God, it is the worlde 

wherein we lyue, that is the onely God. What can we beholde more 

noble then the worlde, more faire, more beautifull, more glorious ? 

what more maiesticall to the sight, or more constant in substance ? 

But this by the way Euphues, I haue greter & more forcible argu-10 

ments to confirme my opinion, & to confute the errors of those 

that imagine that there is a God. But first I wouide gladly heare 

thee shape an aunswere to that which I haue sayde, for well I knowe 

that thou arte not onely one of those which beleeue that ther is 

a god, but of them also, which are so precise in honouring him, that 15 

they be scarce wise in helping themselues. 

Euphues, If my hope (Atheos) were not better to conuerte thee, 

then my happe was heere to conferre with thee, my hearte wouide 

breake for griefe, which beginneth freshly to bleede'for sorrowe, thou 

hast stroken mee into such a shiuering and colde terror at the 20 

rehearsing of this thy monstrous opinion, that I looke euery minute 

when the grounde shoulde open to swallowe thee vpp, and that God 

which thou knowest not shoulde with thunder from Heauen strike 

thee to Hell. Was there euer Barbarian so sencelesse, euer miscreaunt 

so barbarous, that did not acknowledge a lyuinge and euer- 25 

lasting lehouah ? I cannot but tremble at the remembraunce of his 

maiestie, and dost thou make it a mockerie ? 

O iniquitie of times, O corruption of manners, O blasphemie 

against the heauens. The Heathen man sayth, yea that Tullye 

whome thou thy selfe alleadgest, that there is no nation so barbarous, 30 

no kinde of people so sauage in whom resteth not this perswasion 

that there is a God, and euen they that in other partes of theire lyfe 

seeme very lyttle to differ from brute beastes, doe continally keepe 

a certeyne seede of Relygion, so throughlye hath this common principle 

possessed all mens mindes, and so faste it sticketh in all mens 35 

bowells. 

Yea Idolatrye it selfe is sufficient proofe of this perswasion for we 

2 y e om. CE rest his] the E 5 Pitagoras C: Pithagoras G rest 

11 errour E rest 19 for 1 ] with E rest 27 it om. E rest 29 heauen 

E rest , 31 resteth] there resteth C-1613, [1623] : there resisteth 1617 : there 

resided; 1631-6 35 in] to E rest 37 a before sufficient G rest

EUPHUES AND ATHEOS 293 

see how willyngiy man abaseth himselfe to honour other creatures, to 

doe homage to stockes, to goe on pilgrimage to images. If therefore 

man rather then he woulde haue no God doe worship a stone, 

how much more art thou duller then a stone which goest against 

5 the opinion of all men. 

Plato a Philosopher woulde often say, there is one whome we may 

call God omnipotent, glorious, immortall, vnto whose similytude we 

that creepe heere on the earthe haue our soules framed. What 

can be sayde more of a Heathen, yea, what more of a Christian ? 

10 Aristotle when he coulde not finde out by the secrecie of Nature 

the cause of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea, cryed out with a 

loude voyce, O thing of things haue mercy vpon mee. 

Cleanthes alleadged foure causes, which might induce man to 

acknowledge a God, the first by the foreseeing of things to come, 

15 the second by the infinite commodities which we dayly reape, as by 

the temperature of the aire, the fatnesse of the earth, the fruitefulnesse 

of trees, plantes and hearbes, the aboundaunce of all thinges 

that may eyther serue for the necessitie of many, or the superfluitie 

of a few, the thirde by the terror that the minde of man is 

20 stroken into, by lyghtenings, thunderings, tempestes, hayles, snow, 

earthquakes, pestilence, by the straunge and terrible fightes which 

cause vs to tremble, as the rayning of bloud, the firie impressions in 

the Elemente, the ouerflowinge of floudes in the earth, the prodigious 

shapes and vnnaturall formes of men, of beastes, of birdes, of fishes, 

25 of all creatures, the appearing of biasing Commettes, which euer 

prognosticate some straunge mutation, the fighte of two Sunnes 

which happened in the Consulshippe of Tuditanus and Aquilius, with 

these things mortall men beeing afrighted are enforced to acknowledge 

an immortall & omnipotent God. The fourth by y e equalitie of 

30 mouing in the heauen, the course of the Sunne, the order of the 

starres, the beautifulnesse of the Element, the sight whereof might 

sufficiently induce vs to beleeue they proceede not by chaunce, by 

nature, or destinie, but by the eternall and diuine purpose of some 

omnipotent Deitie. Heereoff it came that when the Philosophers 

35 could giue no reason by nature, they would saye there is one aboue 

nature, an other would cal him the first mouer, an other the ayder 

of nature, and so foorth. 

2 and before to 2 E rest 3 coulde] wil G rest 11 out om. E rest 

15 the 2 om. F rest 20 the before lightnings E rest 21 earth-quake E 2 rest 

27 Tudatanus EF 29 of] in TMC

294 EUPHUES 

But why goe I about in a thing so manifest to vse proofes so 

manifolde. If thou denie the truth who can proue it, if thou denie 

that blacke is blacke, who can by reason reproue thee, when thou 

opposest thy self against reason ? thou knowest that manifest truthes 

are not to be proued but beleeued, and that he that denieth the 5 

principles of any Arte is not to bee confuted by argumentes, but to 

bee left to his owne folly. But I haue a better opinion of thee, and 

therefore I meane not to trifle wyth Philosophy but to trye this by 

the touchstone of the Scriptures. We reade in the seconde of Exodus, 

that when Moses desired of God to knowe what hee should name him 10 

to the children of Israeli, hee aunswered, thou shalte saye, I am that 

I am. Agayne, hee that is hath sent mee vnto you. The Lorde euen 

your God, hee is God in the heauen aboue and in the earth beneath, 

I am y e first & the last I am. I am the Lorde, and there is none 

other besides mee. Agayne, I am the Lord and there is none other. 15 

I haue created the lyght and made darkenesse, making peace and 

framing euill. If thou desire to vnderstande what God is, thou sbalt 

heare, he is euen a consuming fire, the Lorde of reuenge, the God of 

iudgement, the liuing God, the searcher of the reynes, he that made 

all things of nothing, Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and yet without 20 

beginning, the ende, and yet euerlastinge, one at whose breath the 

mountaines shall shake, whose seat is the loftie Cherubins, whose 

footestoole is the earthe, inuisible, yet seeinge all things, a gelous 

God, a louing God, myraculous in all pointes, in no part monstrous. 

Besides this, thou shalt well vnderstande that hee is such a God as 25 

wil punish him whosoeuer he be y t blasphemeth his name, for holy 

is the Lord. It is written, bring out the blasphemer without y e tents 

& let al those that hearde him laye their handes vppon hys heade, 

and let all the people stone him. He that blasphemeth the name of 

the Lorde shall dye the death. Suche a gelous God, that whosoeuer 30 

committeth Idolatrye wyth straunge Gods hee will strike wyth terrible 

plagues. Tourne not to Idols neyther make Gods wyth handes, 

I am the Lord your God: Thou shalte make no Image which the 

Lorde thy God abhorreth. Thou shalt haue no newe GOD, neyther 

worshyp any straunge Idoll. For all the Gods of the Gentiles are 35 

Diuels. 

My sonnes keepe your selues from Images, the worshippinge of 

4 reason ? / substitute a note of interrogation for comma 11-a saye . . . 

hee that is] say, I am that I am. Again, I am that I am. Againe, Hee that is, 

G rest 14 no E rest 18 Lorde] God G rest 26 whatsoeuer E rest


Idols is the cause of all euyll, the beginninge and the ende. Cursed 

bee that man that engraueth any Images, it is an abhominatiO before 

the Lorde. They shall be confounded that worshippe grauen 

Images, or glory in Idols. I wyll not giue my glorye to an other, nor 

5 my prayses to grauen Images. If all these testimonies of the Scriptures 

cannot make thee to acknowledge a lyuinge GOD, harken what 

they saye of such as be altogether incredulous. Euery vnbeleeuer 

shall dye in his incredulitie. Woe be to those that bee loose in heart, 

they beleeue there is no God, and therefore they shall not bee pro- 

10 tected of him. The wrathe of the Lorde shall kindle agaynste an 

vnbeleeuinge nation. If yee beleeue not yee shall not endure. Hee 

that beleeueth not shall bee damned. Hee that beleeueth not is 

iudged alreadye. The portion of the vnbeleeuers shall be in the 

lake that burneth wyth fire and brimstone which is the seconde death. 

15 If thou feele in thy selfe Atheos anye sparke of grace praye vnto the 

Lorde and hee wyll cause it to flame, if thou haue no feelinge of 

fayth, yet praye and the Lorde wyll gyue aboundaunce, for as hee 

is a terrible God, whose voyce is lyke the rushinge of many waters, 

so is he a mercifull God whose woordes are as softe as Oyle. 

20 Though he breath fire out of his nostrils agaynst sinners, yet is he 

milde to those that aske forgiuenesse. But if thou bee obstinate that 

seeinge thou wylt not see, and knowing thou wylt not acknowledge, 

then shall thy heart bee hardened wyth Pharao, and grace shall bee 

taken awaye from thee with Sauk, Thus sayth the Lorde, who so 

25 beleeueth not shall perishe, heauen and earth shall passe, but the 

word of the Lord shall endure for euer. 

Submyt thy selfe before the throne of hys Maiestye, and his mercye 

shall saue thee. Honour the Lorde and it shall bee well wyth thee. 

Besides him feare no straunge God. Honour the Lorde wyth all 

30 thy soule. Offer vnto God the sacrifice of prayse. Be not lyke the 

hipocrites whiche honour God with their lips, but be farre from hym 

with their heartes, neyther lyke y e foole which sayth in his heart, 

ther is no God. But if thou wylt stil perseuer in thine obstinacie 

thine end shal be worse then thy beginning: y e Lord, yea, thy 

35 sauiour shal come to be thy ludge. When thou shalt beholde him 

come in glory with millions of Angels and Archangels, when thou 

shalt see him appeare in thundringes and lyghtninges and flashinges 

of fire, when the mountaynes shall melt, and the heauens be 

5 praise C rest 11 vnbleeuinge A -12 shall not T rest 14 brimstome A 

25 not shall] shall not G rest 28 shalll 2 A 32 which] that G rest his in A

296 EUPHUES 

wrapped vp lyke a scrowle, when all the earth shall tremble, with 

what face wilt thou beholde his glorye that deniest his Godhead ? 

how canst thou abide his presence that beleeuest not his essence ? 

what hope canst thou haue to be saued which diddest neuer acknowledge 

any to be thy Sauiour ? Then shall it be sayde to thee and to 5 

all those of thy secte (vnlesse ye repent) depart all yee workers of 

iniquitie, there shall bee weepinge and gnashing of teeth When you 

shal see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all the Prophets in the 

kingdome of God, and yee to bee thrust out: You shall conceyue 

heate and bringe foorth woode, your owne consciences shall consume 10 

you lyke fire. Heere dost thou see Atheos the threatninges agaynst 

vnbeleeuers, and the punishment prepared for miscreantes. What 

better or sounder proofe canst thou haue that there is a GOD then 

thine owne conscience, which is vnto thee a thousande wytnesses ? 

Consider wyth thy selfe that thy souleis immortal, made to the Image 15 

of the almighty God: bee not curious to enquire of God, but carefull 

to beleeue, neither bee thou desperate if thou see thy sinnes 

abounde, but faythfull to obteine mercy, for the Lorde will saue 

thee bycause it is hys pleasure, searche therefore the Scriptures for 

they testifie of him. 20 

Atheos, Truely Euphues you haue sayde somewhat, but you goe 

about contrarye to the customes of schooles, which mee thinckes 

you shoulde dilygentlye obserue beeinge a professed Philosopher, for 

when I demaunde by what reason men are induced to acknowledge 

a God, you confirme it by course of Scripture, as who shoulde saye 25 

there were not a relatyon betweene GOD and the Scripture, bycause 

as the olde fathers define, wythout Scripture there were no GOD, 

no Scripture without a GOD. Whosoeuer therefore denyeth a Godhead, 

denyeth also the scriptures which testifie of him. This is in 

my opinion absurdum per absurdius to proue one absurditie by an 30 

other. If thou canst as substantiate by reason proue thy authoritie 

of Scriptures to be true, as thou hast proued by Scriptures there is 

a God, then will I willyngly with thee both beleeue the Scriptures, 

and worshippe thy God. I haue heard that Antiochus commaunded 

all the copies of the Testament to bee burnt, from whence therefore 35 

haue we these newe bookes, I thincke thou wilt not saye by reuelation, 

therefore goe forwarde. 

5 a-any A to 3 ] vnto G rest 6 ye] you C rest yee] you T-1613 13 

or] and G rest 15 is om. G 19 for cm. G rest 22 custome G rest 

25-6 as who .. . GOD and] and who . .. God as G 26 was not G-F; 

was 1613 rest


Euphues. I haue read of the milke of a Tygresse that the more 

salte there is throwne into it the fresher it is, and it may be that thou 

hast eyther eaten of that milke, or that thou arte the Whelpe of that 

Monster, for the more reasons that are beate into thy head, the more 

5 vnreasonable thou seemest to bee, the greater my authorities are, the 

lesser is thy beliefe. As touching the authoritie of Scriptures although 

there be manye arguments which do proue yea and enforce the wicked 

to confesse that the Scriptures came from God, yet by none other 

meane then by the secrete testimony of the holy Ghost our heartes 

10 are truely perswaded that it is God which speaketh in the lawe, in the 

Prophets, in the Gospell: the orderly disposition of the wisedome of 

God, the doctrine fauoring nothing of earthlynesse, the godly agreement 

of all parts amonge themselues, and specially the basenesse 

of contemptible wordes vttering the high misteryes of the heauenly 

15 kingedome, are seconde helpes to establish the Scriptures. 

Moreouer the antiquitie of the Scripture, whereas the bookes of 

other Relygions are later then the bookes of Moses, which yet doth 

not himselfe inuent a newe God, but setteth foorth to the Israelites 

the God of their fathers. Whereas Moses doth not hyde the shame 

20 of Leuy his father, nor the murmuring of Aaron his brother, and of 

Marie his sister, nor doth aduaunce his owne children: The same 

are arguments that in his booke is nothing fayned by man. Also the 

myracles that happened as well at the publyshing of the lawe as in 

all the rest of time are infallyble proofes that the Scriptures proceeded 

25 from the mouth of God. Also whereas Moses speaking in the person 

of Jacob, assigneth gouernment to the Tribe of Iuda, and where he 

telleth before of the callynge of the Gentiles, whereof the one came 

to passe foure hundreth yeares after, the other almost two thousande 

yeares, these are arguments .that it is GOD himselfe that speaketh in 

30 the bookes of Moses. 

Whereas Esay telleth before of the captiuitie of the Iewes and 

their restoryng by Cyrus (which was borne an hundreth yeares after 

the deathe of Esay) and wheras Jeremy before the people were led 

away apointeth their exile to continew threescore and ten yeares. 

35 Whereas Jeremy and Ezechiel beeinge farre distaunt in places the 

one from the other doe agree in all theire sayings. Where Daniel 

2-3 thou hast eyther A-C: either thou hast G rest 4 beaten G rest 5 

are] serue G rest 8 no E 2 rest 13 especially T rest 15 Scripture 

G rest 20 murmuring G rest: mourninge A-C 24 the before time E rest 

25 speaketh-E F 34 appointed F rest 35 in om. E, whence in far 

distant places Frest

298 EUPHUES 

telleth of things to come sixe hundreth yeares after. These are most 

certeyne proues to establish the authoritie of the bookes of the 

Prophets. The simplycitie of the speach of the first three Euaungelysts, 

conteyninge heauenlye mysteries, the prayse of John thundring 

from on high with weyghty sentences, the heauenlye maiestie 5 

shininge in the writings of Peter and Paule, the sodayne callyng of 

Mathew from the receipte of custome, the callyng of Peter and Iohn 

from their fisher boates to the preaching of the Gospell, the conuersion 

and callyng of Paule beeing an enemy to the Apostleshippe are 

signes of the holye Ghost speaking in them. The consent of so 10 

many ages, of so sundrye nations, and of so diuers mindes, in embracing 

the Scriptures, and the rare godlynesse of some, oughte to 

establish the authoritie thereoff amongst vs. Also the bloude of so 

many Martyrs which for the confession thereoff haue suffred deathe 

with a constant and sober zeale, are vndoubted testimonyes of the 15 

truthe and authoritie of the Scriptures. 

The myracles that Moses recounteth are sufficient to perswade vs 

that God, yea, the God of hoastes, sette downe the Scriptures. For 

this that hee was carryed in a clow.de vpp into the mountayne : that 

there euen vntill the fortith daye he continued without the companye 20 

of men. That in the verye publyshinge of the lawe his face did 

shine as it were besette with Sunne beames, that lyghteninges flashed 

rounde about, that thunder and noyses were eache where hearde in 

the ayre, that a Trompette sownded being not sownded with any 

mouth of man. 25 

That the entry of the Tabernacle by a clowde set betweene was 

kepte from the sighte of the people, that his authoritie was so miraculously 

reuenged with the horrible destruction of Chorah, Dathan, 

and Abirofiy and all that wicked faction, that the rocke stroken with 

a rodde did by and by powre foorth a ryuer, that at his prayer it 30 

rayned Manna from Heauen. Dyd not God heerein commend him 

from Heauen as an vndoubted Prophet ? 

Nowe as touchinge the tyrannye of Antiochus, which commaunded 

all the bookes to be burned, heerein GODS singuler prouidence is 

seene, which hath alwayes kepte his woorde both from the mightye 35 

3 Prophets. I substitute for comma a full stop, absolutely required by context 

5 on] an T M 8 their] the C rest Fishers F rest 11 so 1 om. F 

rest 17 recounted C rest soffient A 20 vnto E rest fortith 

A-GE 2 1617, [1623]: fortieth E l F rest 22 with the C rest lyghtening C 

28 Corah" G -[1623]: Korah 1631-6 29 Abiram 1631-6


that they coulde neuer extinguishe the same, and from the mallitious 

that they coulde neuer diminish it. Ther were diuers copyes which 

god of his great goodnes kept from the bloudie proclamation of 

Antiochus, & by & by followed the translating of them into Greeke, that 

5 they might be publyshed vnto the whole worlde. The Hebrew tongue 

lay not onely vnesteemed but almost vnknown, and surely had it not 

bene Gods will to haue his religiO prouided for, it had altogether 

perished. Thou seest Atheos how the Scriptures come from the 

mouth of God, & are written by the finger of the Holy Ghost, in 

10 y e consciences of all the faythfull. But if thou be so curious to aske 

other questions, or so quarrellous to striue agaynst the truth, I must 

aunswer thee, as an olde father answered a young foole which needes 

would know what God did before he made Heauen, to whom he said, 

hell, for such curious inquisitors of gods secrets, whose wisedome is 

15 not to be comprehended, for who is he that can measure the winde 

or way the fire, or attayne vnto the vnsearcheable iudgementes of the 

Lorde. 

Besides this, where the Holy Ghost hath ceased to sette downe, 

there ought we to cease to enquire, seeing we haue y e sufficiencie of 

20 our saluation conteined in holy Scripture. It were an absurditie in 

schooles, if one beeing vrged with a place in Aristotle could finde 

none other shifte to auoyde a blancke then in doubting whether 

Aristotle spake such words or no. Shall it then be tollerable to 

denye the Scriptures hauing no other colour to auoyde an incon- 

25 uenience, but by doubting whether they proceede from the holy 

Ghost? But that such doubtes aryse amonge many in our age, 

the reason is, theire lyttle faythe, not the insufficient proofe of the 

cause. 

Thou mayst as well demaund how I proue white to be white, or 

30 blacke, blacke, and why it shoulde bee called white rather then greene. 

Such grosse questions are to be aunswered with slender reasons, and 

such idle heades would be scoffed with adle aunsweres. He that 

hath no motion of God in his minde, no feelinge of the spirite, no 

tast of heauenly thinges, no remorce in conscience, no sparke of 

35 zeale, is rather to be confounded by tormentes, then reasons, for it 

is an euydent and infallible signe that the holy Ghost hath not sealed 

his conscience, whereby hee myght crye Abba Father. I coulde alledge 

1 should E 2 rest neuer] not C rest 3 had before kept C rest 4 

GreeceE 1 10 all om. C rest 21 in] of G rest 22 no E 2 rest 27 

sufficient G rest 28 cause] same Grest 30 blacke 2 ] backe M 32 

should T rest 34 in] of E rest

3oo EUPHUES 

Scripture to proue that the godly shoulde refraine from the companye 

of the wicked, which although thou wylt not beleeue, yet will it condemne 

thee. Sainct Paul sayth, I desire you brethren that you absteine 

from the companye of those that walke inordinatelye. Agayne 

my sonne if sinners shall flatter thee gyue no eare vnto them, flye 5 

from the euill, and euils shall flye from thee. 

And surely were it not to confute thy detestable heresie, and bringe 

thee if it might be to some taste of the holy Ghost, I would abandon 

all place of thy abode, for I thincke the grounde accursed whereon 

thou standest: Thine opinions are so monstrous that I cannot tell 10 

whether thou wylte cast a doubt also whether thou haue a soule or 

no, whiche if thou doe, I meane not to wast winde in prouing that 

which thine infidellitie wyll not permit thee to beleeue, for if thou 

hast as yet felt no tast of the spirit working in thee, then sure I am 

that to proue the immortallitie of the soule were bootelesse, if thou 15 

haue a secrete feelinge, then it were needlesse. And God graunt 

thee that glowinge and sting in conscience that thy soule may 

witnesse to thy selfe that there is a liuing God, and thy heart 

shed drops of bloud as a token of repentance, in that thou hast 

denied that God, and so I comit thee to God, and that which I 2o 

cannot do with any perswasion I wil not leaue to attempt with my 

prayer. 

Atheos. Nay stay a while good Euphues & leaue not him perplexed 

w t feare, whom thou maist make perfect by faith. For now 

I am brought into such a double & doubtfull distresse that I knowe 25 

not howe to tourne mee, if I beleeue not the Scriptures, then shall 

I be damned for vnbeliefe, if I beleeue them then I shall be confounded 

for my wycked lyfe. I knowe the whole course of the Bible 

which if I shoulde beleeue then must I also beleeue that I am an • 

abiect. For thus sayth Heli to his sonnes, if man sin againe man, 30 

God can forgiue it, if against God who shall entreate for him ? he 

that sinneth is of the Dyuell, the rewarde of sinne is death, thou 

shake not suffer the wicked to lyue: take all the Princes of the 

people and hange them vp agaynst the Sunne on Iybbets, that my 

anger maye bee tourned from Israell, these sayinges of holy Scripture 35 

cause mee to tremble and shake in euery sinnewe. Agayne this saith 

the holy Byble nowe shall the scowrge fal vppon thee for thou hast 

sinned, beholde I set a curse before you to daye if you shall not 

6 euils] euill E rest 13 thou] you E 2 26 mee AM only 27 

shall I Crest 34 vp om.E rest 38 set] am E rest


harken to the commaundementes of the Lorde, all they that haue 

forsaken the Lorde shall be confounded. 

Furthermore, where threates are poured out agaynst sinners, my 

heart bleedeth in my bellye to remember them. I wyll come vnto 

5 you in iudgement sayth the Lorde, and I wyll be a swifte and a seuere 

witnesse : offenders, adulterers, and those that haue committed periurie 

and retained the duetie of the hirelinges, oppressed the widowes, 

misused the straunger, and those that haue not feared me the Lord 

of hoasts. Out of his mouth shall come a two edged sworde. Be- 

10 holde I come quickly, and bringe my rewarde with me, which is to 

yelde euery one according to his desertes. Great is the day of the 

Lord and terrible, and who is he that may abide him ? What shall 

I then doe when the Lord shall arise to iudge, and when hee shall 

demaund what shal I answere ? Besides this, the names y t in holy 

15 scripture are attributed to God bring a terrour to my guiltie conscience. 

He is said to be a terrible God, a God of reuenge, whose 

voice is like the thuder, whose breath maketh al the corners of the 

earth to shake & tremble. These things Euphues testifie vnto my 

conscience that if there be a God, he is the God of the righteous, 

20 & one that wil confound the wicked. Whether therefore shal I goe, 

or how may I auoide the day of vengeance to come? if I goe to 

heauen that is his seate, if into the earth that is his footstoole, if 

into the depth he is there also: Who can shrowde himself from the 

face of y e Lord, or where can one hide him that the Lord cannot 

25 finde him ? his wordes are like fire and the people lyke drye woode 

and shalbe consumed. 

Euphues. Although I cannot but reioyce to heare thee acknowledge 

a God, yet must I needes lament to see thee so much distrust 

him. The Diuell that roaring Lyon seing his pray to be taken out 

30 of his iawes, alledgeth al Scripture y t may condemne the sinner, 

leauing al out that should comfort y e sorrowful. Much like vnto 

y e deceitfull Phisition which recounteth all things that may endomage 

his patient, neuer telling any thing y t may recure hint Let not thy 

conscience be agrieued, but with a patiet heart renounce all thy 

35 former iniquities and thou shalt receiue eternall life. Assure thy selfe 

7 duties C rest the 2 A only 11 to before euerie G rest 12 may] 

can C rest him] it E 2 rest 12-3 What then shall I then doe CGE 1 13 

the] thy G: as the E 2 rest 15 Scriptures E rest to 2 ] of E F 21 how 

may I] who may T rest 23 ther he is T-E: there is he F rest 24 cannot] 

may not E 2 rest 33 his] the E rest things F1613 34 penitent 

G rest thy] my G

302 EUPHUES 

that as God is a Lord so he is a father, as Christ is a Iudge, so he is 

a Sauiour, as ther is a lawe, so there is a Gospel. Though God haue 

leaden handes which when they strike paye home, yet hath he 

leaden feet which are as slow to ouertake a sinner. Heare therfore 

the great comfort flowing in euery leafe & line of the Scripture if thou 5 

be patient. I my selfe am euen hee which doth blotte out thy transgressions 

and that for mine own sake, and I will not be mindefull of 

thy sinnes. Beholde the Lordes hande is not shortned that it cannot 

saue, neither his eare heauy, that it cannot heare. If your sinnes 

were as Crimosin they shall be made whiter then Snow, & though 10 

they were as red as Scarlet they shall be made like white Woll. If 

we confesse our offences hee is faythfull and iuste so that he will 

forgiue vs our sinnes. God hathe not appointed vs vnto wrath but 

vnto saluation, by the meanes of our Lorde Jesus Christe, the earthe 

is filled with the mercye of the Lorde. It is not the will of your 15 

Father which is in heauen that any one of the little ones should 

perishe. God is riche in mercye. I will not the death of a sinner 

sayth the Lord God, retourne and lyue. The sonne of man came 

not to destroye but to saue. God hath mercy on all, bycause hee 

can doe all. God is mercifull, longe sufferinge and of much mercy, ao 

If the wicked man shall repent of hys wickednesse which hee hath 

committed, and keepe my commaundementes, doinge Iustice and 

iudgement, hee shall lyue the lyfe, and shall not dye. If I shall saye 

vnto the sinner thou shalt dye the death, yet if hee repent and doe 

Iustice he shall not dye. Call to thy minde the great goodnesse of 25 

God in creating thee, his singuler loue in giuing his sonne for thee. 

So God loued the worlde that he gaue his onely begotten sonne that 

whosoeuer beleeued in him myght not perish but haue euerlasting 

life. God hath not sent his sonne to iudge the world, but that the 

worlde might be saued by him. Can the Mother (sayth the Prophet) 30 

forget the chylde of hir wombe, & though she be so vnnaturall, yet 

will I not be vnmindefull of thee. There shalbe more ioye in heauen 

for y e repentaunce of one sinner the" for nintie & nine iust persons. 

I came not saith Christ to cal y e righteous but sinners to repentace. 

If any ma sin, we haue an aduocate with the father Iesus Christe the 35 

righteous, hee is the propitiation for our sinnes, and not for our sinnes 

onely but for the sinnes of the whole worlde. I write vnto you little 

5 greatest E l 6 penitent C rest thy ATE 2 rest: his M-E 1 11 

as 1 om. E 2 -1617, 1631-6 13 sinne G 16 the] these G rest 19 v 

31 so om, C


children bicause your sinnes be forgiuen for his names sake. Doth 

not Christ saye that whatsoeuer wee shall aske the Father in his name 

wee shall obtayne ? Doth not God saye this is my beloued sonne in 

whome I am well pleased, heare him ? I haue reade of Themistocles 

5 which hauing offended Philip y e king of Macedonia, & could no way 

apease his anger, meeting his young sonne Alexander tooke him in 

his armes, & met Philip in the face : Philip seeing y e smilyng countenaunce 

of the childe, was well pleased with Themistocles, Euen so if 

through thy manifolde sinnes and haynous offences thou prouoke the 

10 heauye displeasure of thy God insomuch as thou shalt tremble for 

horror, take his onelye begotten and welbeloued sonne Iesus in thine 

armes, and then he neyther can nor will bee angry with thee. If 

thou haue denyed thy God, yet if thou goe out with Peter and weepe 

bitterly, God will not deny thee. Though with the prodigall sonne 

15 thou wallow in thine owne wilfulnesse, yet if thou retourne agayne 

sorrowfull thou shalt be receiued. If thou bee a grieuous offender, 

yet if thou come vnto Christ with the woman in Luke and wash his 

feete with thy teares thou shalt obteyne remission. 

Consider with thy selfe the great loue of Christ and the bitter 

30 torments that he endured for thy sake, which was enforced through 

the horror of death to crye with a loude voyce, Eloi, Eloi, Lamasabathanu 

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken mee, and with 

a groning spirite to say, my soule is heauie euen vnto the deathe, 

tarry heere arid watch, and agayne, father if it be possible lette this 

25 cuppe passe from mee. Remember how he was crowned with 

thornes, crucified with theeues, scourged and hanged for thy saluation, 

how hee swette water and bloude, for thy remission, how he 

endured euen the torments of the damned spirites for thy redemption, 

how he ouercame death y t thou shouldst not dye, how he 

30 conquered the Diuell y t thou mightest not be damned. When thou 

shalt record what he hath done to purchase thy freedome, how canst 

thou dreade bondage ? When thou shalt beholde the agonyes and 

anguish of minde that he suffered for thy sake, howe canst thou 

doubte of the release of thy soule ? When thy Sauiour shall be thy 

35 Iudge, why shouldest thou tremble to heare of iudgement ? When 

thou hast a continuall Mediator with God the father, howe canst thou 

distrust of his fauour. 

Turne therefore vnto Christ with a willyng hearte & a waylyng 

1 name E rest 12 nor] or C rest 21 lamasabacthani 1613 rest 23 

euen om. E rest

304 EUPHUES 

minde for thy offences, who hath promised y t at what time soeuer 

a sinner repenteth him of his sinnes he shal be forgiuen, who calleth 

al those that are heauie laden, that they might be refreshed, who is 

the dore to them that knocke, the waye to them that seeke, the truthe, 

the rocke, the corner stone, the fulnesse of time, it is he y t can & will 5 

poure oyle into thy wounds. Who absolued Marie Magdalene from 

hir sinnes but Christ? Who forgaue the theefe his robbery and 

manslaughter but Christ? Who made Matkew the Publycane and 

tollgatherer, an Apostle and Preacher but Christ ? Who is that good 

shepehearde that fetcheth home the straye sheepe so louingly vppon 10 

his shoulders but Christ ? Who receiued home the lost sonne, was 

it not Christ ? Who made of Saul a persecuter, Paul an Apostle, 

was it not Christ ? I passe ouer diuers other histories both of the 

olde and new Testament which do aboundantly declare what great 

comforte the faithfull penitent sinners haue alwayes had in hearing 15 

the comfortable promises of Gods mercy. Canst thou then Atheos 

distrust thy Christ who reioyceth at thy repentaunce ? Assure thy 

selfe that through his passion and bloudshedding, death hath lost 

his sting, the Diuill his victory, and that the gates of hell shall not 

preuayle agaynst thee. Lette not therefore the bloude of Christ be 20 

shed in vayne by thine obstinate and harde hearte. Let this perswasion 

rest in thee that thou shalt receiue absolution freely, and then 

shalt thou feele thy soule euen as it were to hunger and thirst after 

rightuousnes. 

Atheos. Well Euphues seeing the Holy Ghost hath made thee 25 

y e meane to make me a man (for before y e tast of the gospell I was 

worse then a beast) I hope y e same spirite wil also lyghten my conscience 

with his word, & confirme it to the ende in constancie, y t I 

may not only confesse my Christ faithfully, but also preach him freely, 

that I may not only be a Minister of his word but also a Martir for 30 

it, if it be his pleasure. O Euphues howe much am I bounde to y e 

goodnesse of almightie god, which hath made me of an infidell a beleeuer, 

of a castaway a Christian, of an heathenly Pagan a heauenly 

Protestant. O how comfortable is the feelyng & tast of grace, how 

ioyfull are the glad tidings of the Gospell, y e faithfull promises of 35 

saluation, y e free redemption of y e soule. I will endeauour by all 

meanes to confute those damnable, I know not by what names to 

4 seeke the truth, TMC 1613-36 10 Sephearde T: Shephearde M; Sheapheard 

C: sheepheard E-1613: shepheard G 1617-23 : shepherd 1631-6 13 

diuerse F 1613 20 the] that E rest 26 y e1 ] a C rest 31 it 2 om. ATM 

37 name E rest


terme them, but blasphemers I am sure, which if they be no more 

certeinly they can be no lesse. I see now y e ods betwixt light & 

darkenes, faith & frowardnes, Christ & Belial, be thou Euphues 

a witnes of my faith seeing thou hast ben the instrument of my 

5 beliefe, and I will pray that I shewe it in my lyfe. As for thee 

I accompt my selfe so much in thy debt as I shal neuer be able 

w t the losse of my life to reder thee thi due, but god which rewardeth 

y e zeale of al men wil I hope blesse thee, & I wil pray 

for thee. 

10 Eu. O Atheos little is y e debt thou owest me, but great is y e 

comfort that I haue receiued by thee. Giue the praise to God, 

whose goodnesse hath -made thee a member of the mysticall body of 

Christe, and not onely a brother with his sonne, but also a coheriter 

with thy Sauiour. There is no heart so hard, no heathen so obstinate, 

15 no miscreaunt or Infidell so impious, that by grace is not made as 

supple as oyle, as tractable as a sheepe, as faithfull as any. The 

Adamant though it be so harde that nothinge can bruse it, yet if the 

warme bloude of a Goate be poured vpon it, it bursteth: euen so 

although the heart of the Atheist and vnbeleeuer be so hard that 

20 neither reward nor reuenge can mollyfie it, so stout 

that no perswasion can breake it, yet if the grace 

of God purchased by the bloude of Christe, doe 

but once towch it, it renteth in sunder, and is 

enforced to acknowledge an omnipotent and 

25 euerlasting Iehoua. Lette vs therefore both 

{Atheos I will not nowe call thee, but 

Theophilus) fly vnto that Christ which 

hath through his mercy, not our merits, 

purchased for vs the enheri- 

30 taunce of euerlasting lyfe. 

,2 betweene G rest 11 that om. G rest 13 a 2 om T-E 15 no] 

do E 16 supply E l 23 renteth so all 

BOND 1 

X

Cevtcine Letters writ by 

Euphues to his fricndcs. 

Euphues to Philautus. 

IF the course of youth had any respect to the staffe of age, or the 

liuing man any regarde to the dying moulde, we would with 5 

greater care whe we were young, shunne those things which should 

griue vs when we be olde, and wyth more seueritie direct the sequele 

of our lyfe, for the feare of present death. But such is either y e vnhappinesse 

of mans condition, or the vntowardnesse of his croked 

nature, or the wilfulnesse of his minde, or the blindnesse of his heart, 10 

that in youth he surfiteth wyth delightes preuenting age, or if he liue, 

continueth in dotage forgetting death. It is a world to see how in 

our flourishing tyme when we best may, we be worst willing to thriue. 

And howe in fadinge of our dayes, when we moste shoulde, we haue 

least desire to remember our ende. Thou wilt muse Philautus, to 15 

here Euphues to preach, who of late had more minde to serue his 

Ladye then to worshippe his Lorde. Ah Philautus thou art now 

a Courtier in Italy, I a scholler in Athens, and as hard it is for thee 

to follow good counsayle as for me to enforce thee, seeing in thee 

there is little will to amend, and in mee lesse authoritie to com- 20 

maunde, yet will I exhort thee as a friende, I woulde I myght 

compell thee as a Father. But I haue heard that it is peculier to 

an Italian to stande in hys owne conceite, and to a courtier neuer 

to be controlde, which causeth me to feare y t in thee which I lament 

in others. That is, that either thou seeme to wise in thine owne 25 

opinion thinking scorne to be taught, or to wilde in thine attempts 

in reiecting admonishmgt. The one proceedeth of selfe loue and so 

thy name importeth, the other of meere folly, and y t thy nature 

sheweth: thou lookest I should craue pardon for speaking so boldly, 

no Philautus: I meane not to flatter thee, for then shoulde I incurre 30 

3 Euphes T 8 the om. C rest 14 the fading TMC: the vading 

G rest 16 to 1 om. G rest 26 thy G rest 29 sheweth thou lookest: A 

30 I should G rest

LETTERS OF EUPHUES 307 

the suspition of frawde, neither am I determined to fall out w t thee, 

for the might y e wise conuince me of folly. But thou art in great 

credite in the court, & what then ? shall thy credit with the Emperour 

abate my courage to my God ? or thy hauty lookes quench 

5 my kindled loue, or thy gallant shew aslake my good wil ? hath y e 

courtier any prerogatiue aboue the clowne, why hee should not be 

reprehended, doth his highe callinge not onely gyue hym a commision 

to sinne but remission also if he offend, doth his preheminence 

in the court warrant him to oppresse the poore by might and 

10 acquite him of punishment ? No Philautus. By how much the 

more thou excellest others in honors, by so muche the more thou 

oughtest to exceede them in honestie, & the higher thy calling is, 

the better ought thy conscience to bee, and as farre it beseemeth 

a gentleman to be from pryde, as hee is from pouertie, and as neere 

15 to gentlenesse in condition, as hee is in bloude : but I will descende 

wyth thee to perticulers. It is reported heere for a troth, that 

Philautus hath giuen ouer himselfe to all deliciousnesse, desiringe 

rather to be dandled in the laps of Ladyes, then busied in the studye 

of good letters : And I woulde thys were all, which is to much, or 

20 the rest a lye, which is to monstrous. It is nowe in euerye mans 

mouth, that thou, yea, thou, Philautus, art so voyde of curtesie, that 

thou hast almost forgotten common sence and humanitie, hauinge 

neither care of religion (a thing to common in a courtier) neither 

regarde of honestie or any vertuous behauiour. Oh Philautus, dost 

25 thou lyue as thou shouldest neuer dye, and laugh as thou shouldest 

neuer mourne, art thou so simple that thou doste not know from 

whence thou earnest, or so sinfull that thou carest not whether thou 

goest: what is in thee y t shoulde make thee so secure, or what can 

there be in any y t may cause him to glorye. Milo, that great wrastler 

30 beganne to weepe when he sawe his armes brawnefallen and weake, 

saying, strength, strength, is but vanitie, Helen, in hir newe glasse 

viewing hir olde face, with a smyling countenaunce cryed: Beautie 

where is thy blaze ? Croesus with all his wealth, Aristotle with all 

his wit, all men with all their wisdome haue and shall perish and 

35 tourne to dust. But thou delightest to haue the newe fashion, the 

Spanish felte, the French ruffe, thy crewe of ruffians, all thine attire 

misshapen to make thee a monster, and all thy time mispent to shewe 

5 thy T rest; the A 9 and] or E rest 10 Philantus A II other 

E-1631 16 heere reported E rest truth G rest 18 in 1 ] on G 

26 that AG-1636 : as TMC 31 vaine C rest 32 a om. C rest 33 

Cnesus A-M 36 thine] thy T-G 

X 2

308 EUPHUES 

thee vnhappy, what should I goe about to decipher thy life, seeinge 

the beginning sheweth the ende to bee naught. Art not thou one of 

those Philautus which sekest to win credite with thy superiors by 

flatterye, and wring out wealth from thy inferiors by force, & vndermine 

thy equals by frawde: dost thou not make y e court not onely 5 

a couer to defend thy selfe fro wrong, but a colour also to commit 

iniurie ? Art not thou one of those y t hauing gotten on their sleeue 

the cognisaunce of a courtier haue shaken from thy skirtes the regard 

of curtesie? I cannot but lament (I would I might remedy) the 

great abuses that raigne in the eies of the Emperour, I feare me the 10 

Poet say to truely, 

Exeat aula 

Qui vult esse pius: virtus & summa potestas 

Non coeunt 

Is not pietie tourned all to pollicie, faith to foresight, iustice to rigour, 15 

doth not he best thriue, y t worst deserueth, & he rule al the country, 

y t hath no conscience ? Doth not y e Emperours court grow to this 

insolent blindnesse, that all yt see not their folly, they accompt fooles, 

& all that speake against it, precise ? laughing at y e simplicitie of y e 

one, & threatning y e boldenes of the other. Philautus, if thou woldest 20 

with due consideration way how farre a courtiers lyfe is from a sound 

beliefe, thou wouldest either frame thy selfe to a new trade or els 

amend thine old manners, yea, thou wouldest w t Crates leaue all thy 

possessions taking thy books and trudge to Athens, and with Anaxagoras 

dispise wealth to attaine wisdome, if thou haddest as great 25 

respect to dye well as thou hast care to Hue wantonly, thou wouldest 

with Socrates seeke how thou migtest yelde to death, rather then wyth 

Aristippus search howe to prolonge thy lyfe. Dost thou not know 

that where the tree falleth there it lyeth ? and euery ones deathes 

daye is his domes day ? that the whole course of lyfe is but a medi- 30 

tation of death, a pilgrimage, a warfare ? Hast thou not read or dost 

thou not regarde what is written, that wee shall all bee cyted before 

the Tribunall seate of God to render a straight accompt of our 

stewardshyp ? if then the rewarde bee to be measured by thy merites, 

what boote canst 'thou looke for, but eternall paine, whiche heere 35 

lyuest in continuall pleasure ? So shouldest thou lyue as thou mayst 

2 the 1 ] thy E rest y u M 8 hauing EF: hast 1613 rest II say 

to A-C: saith too G rest: qy.? to say The lines run on as prose in preceding 

eds, 15 rigor to Iustice A-E 19 & om. C rest 23 nmnnors ATM 

24 take 1617 rest 26 shouldest C rest 29 he CG 34 thy] the 

C-F1617-36 35 looke] seeke T rest


dye, and then shalt thou dye to lyue. Wert thou as strong as Sampson, 

as wise as Salomon, as holy as Dauid, as faythfull as Abraham, 

"as zealous as Moses, as good as any that euer lyued, yet shalt thou 

dye as they haue done, but not rise againe to lyfe with them, vnlesse 

5 thou Hue as they did. But thou wilt say that no man ought to iudge 

thy conscience but thy selfe, seeinge thou knowest it better then any. 

O Philautus, if thou search thy selfe and see not sinne, then is thy 

case almost curelesse. The patient, if Phisitions are to be credited, 

& como experiece estemed, is y e neerest death whe he thinketh him- 

10 selfe past his disease, & the lesse griefe he feeleth y e greater fits he 

endureth : y e woud that is not searched bicause it a lyttle smarteth, 

is fullest of dead flesh, and the sooner it skinneth the sorer it festereth. 

It is safde that Thunder bruseth the tree, but breaketh not 

•the barke, and pearceth the blade, and neuer hurteth the scabberd: 

15 Euen so doth sinne, wounde the hearte, but neuer hurte the eyes, 

and infect the soule, though outwardely it nothing afflict the body. 

Descende therfore into thine owne conscience, confesse thy sinnes, 

reforme thy manners, contemne the worlde, embrace Christ, leaue 

the courte, follow thy study, prefer holynesse before honour, honestie 

20 before promotion, relygion and vprightnesse of lyfe, before the ouerlashinge 

desires of the flesh. Resemble the Bee which out of the 

dryest and bitterest Time sucketh moyst & sweet Honny, and if thou 

canst out of the courte, a place of more pompe then pietie, sucke out 

the true iuice of perfection : but if thou see in thy selfe a will rather 

25 to goe forward in thy losenesse then any meane to goe backewarde, 

if the glystering faces of fayre Ladies, or the glittering shew of lustie 

gallaunts, or courtly fare, or any delycate thing seeme to entice thee 

to farther lewdenesse, come from the court to Athens, and so in 

shunning the causes of euill thou shalt soone escape the effect of 

30 thy misfortune, the more those things please thee, the more thou 

displeasest God, and the greater pride thou takest in sinne, the 

greater paine thou heapest to thy soule. Examine thine own conscience 

and see whether thou hast done as is required, if thou haue, 

thancke the Lorde and praye for encrease of grace, if not, desire God 

35 to giue thee a willyng minde to attayne fayth, and constancie to continue 

to the ende. 

2 Solomon TMC 6 not after it G then om. G 7 see] finde 

C rest 12 sorer] sooner F rest 21 : remember G rest 25 in thy . . . 

backewarde om. G rest 26 face E rest 30 the 1 ] y t M

310 EUPHUES 

Etiphues to Eubulns. 

T Salute thee, in the Lord, &c. Although I was not so wittie to 

follow thy graue aduice when I first knew thee, yet doe I not 

lacke grace to giue thee thankes since I tryed thee. And if I were 

as able to perswade thee to patience, as thou wert desirous to exhort 5 

me to pietie, or as wise to comfort thee in thine age, as thou willyng 

to instruct me in my youtbe, thou shouldest nowe with lesse griefe 

endure thy late losse, and with little care leade thy aged lyfe. Thou 

weepest for the deathe of thy daughter, & I laugh at the folly of the 

father, for greater vanitie is there in the minde of the mourner, then 10 

bitternesse in the deathe of the deceased, but she was amyable, but 

yet sinful, but she was young & might haue lyued, but she was 

mortall and must haue dyed. I but hir youth made thee often 

merry, I but thine age should once make thee wise, I but hir greene 

yeres wer vnfit for death, I but thy hoary haires shoulde dispise lyfe. 15 

Knowest thou not Eubulus, that lyfe is the gifte of God, deathe the 

due of nature, as we receiue the one for a benefitte, so must we abide 

the other of necessitie. Wisemen haue found that by learning which 

olde men should know by experience, that in lyfe there is nothing 

sweet, in death nothing sowre. The Philosophers accompted it y e 20 

chiefest felycitie neuer to be borne, the second soone to die. And 

what hath death in it so hard that we should take it so heauily ? is 

it strange to see y t cutte off, which by nature is made to be cut, or 

that melten, which is fit to be melted ? or that burnt which is apt to 

be burnt, or man to passe that is borne to perish ? But thou grauntest 25 

that she shold haue dyed, & yet art thou grieued y t she is dead. Is 

the death y e better if the lyfe be longer ? no truly. For as neither 

he that singeth most, or praieth longest, or ruleth y e sterne oftenest, 

but he that doth it best deserueth .greatest prayse, so he, not y t hath 

most yeres but many vertues, nor he that hath grayest haires but 30 

greatest goodnes, lyueth longest. The chiefe beau tie of lyfe consisteth 

not in the numbring of many dayes, but in the vsing of 

vertuous doings. Amongst plants those be best esteemed y t in 

shortest time bringe forth much frute. Be not the fairest flowers 

gathered when they be freshest ? the youngest beasts killed for sacri- 35 

fice bicause they be finest ? The measure of lyfe is not length but 

1 to Eubulus TC rest-, to Ferardo A : and Eubulus M ,11 diseased T 

12 was 2 OM. C 16 Ferardo A : Eubules E l is before the 2 F rest 23 

off after cut E rest 24 melten] melted E rest 26" sorrowfull because 

E rest 27 the lyfe be] it be the G rest 33 Among GE l


honestie, neyther do we enter into lyfe to the ende we should set 

downe y e day of our death, but therefore do we lyue, y t we may obey 

him that made vs, and be willyng to dye when he shal call vs. But 

I wil aske thee this question, whether thou wayle the losse of thy 

5 daughter for thine owne sake or hirs, if for thine owne sake, bicause 

thou didst hope in thine age to recouer cofort, then is thy loue to 

hir but for thy commoditie, and therein thou art but an vnkinde 

father, if for hirs, then dost thou mistrust hir saluation, and therein 

thou shewest thy vnconstant fayth. Thou shouldst not weepe that she 

10 hath runne fast, but that thou hast gone so slowe, neyther ought it 

to grieue thee that she is gone to hir home with a few yeares, but 

that thou art to goe with manye. But why goe I about to vse a longe 

processe to a little purpose ? The budde is blasted as soone as the 

blowne Rose, y e winde shaketh off the blossome as well as y e fruite. 

15 Death spareth neyther y e golden locks nor the hoary head. I meane 

not to make a treatise in the prayse of death but to note the necessitie, 

neyther to write what ioyes they receiue that dye, but to show 

what paynes they endure yt lyue. And thou which art euen in the 

wane of thy life, whom nature hath nourished so long, that now she 

20 beginneth to nod, maist well know what griefes, what laboures, what 

paynes, are in age, & yet wouldest thou be eyther young to endure 

many, or elder to byde more. But thou thinkest it honourable to 

goe to y e graue w t a gray head, but I deeme it more glorious to be 

buried with an honest name. Age sayste thou is the blessing of God, 

25 yet the messenger of death. Descende therfore into thine owne 

conscience consider the goodnesse that commeth by the ende, & the 

badnesse which was by y e beginning, take y e death of thy daughter 

patiently, and looke for thine own speedely, so shalt thou perfourme 

both the office of an honeste man, and the honour of an aged father, 

30 and so farewell. 

Euphues to Philautus. 

Touching the deathe of 

Lucilla. 

I 

Haue receiued thy letters, and thou hast decerned mine expectation, 

for thou seemest to take more thought for the losse of an 

harlot, then the life of an honest woman. Thou writest that she was 

3 whensoeuer E rest 5 for before hirs C rest 8 hirs . .. thou] hers, 

thou dost E rest 10 gone] done 1617, 1623 so] too C rest 15 neither 

spareth C rest 21 thou om. G rest

312 EUPHUES 

shamefull in hir trade and shamelesse in hir ende. I beleeue thee, 

it is no meruayle that she which lyuing practised sinne, should dying 

be voyde of shame, neyther coulde there be any great hope of repentaunce 

at the houre of death where there was no regard of honestie 

in time of lyfe. She was stricken sodaynely beeinge troubled with 5 

no sickenesse: It may be, for it is commonly seene, that a sinfull 

lyfe is rewarded with a soddayne deathe, and a sweete beginning 

with a sowre ende. Thou addest moreouer y t she being in great 

credite with the states, died in great beggerie in the streetes, certes 

it is an olde saying that who so lyueth in the courte shall dye in the 10 

strawe, she hoped there by delyghtes to gayne money, and by hir 

deserts purchased misery, they that seeke to clyme by priuie sinne 

shall fall with open shame, and they that couet to swimme in vice, 

shall sinke in vanitie to their owne perilles. Thou sayest that for 

beautie she was the Helen of Greece, and I durst sweare that for 15 

beastlines she might be the Monster of Italy. In my minde greater 

is the shame to be accompted an harlot, then the praise to be esteemed 

amiable. But where thou arte in the courte, there is more regard of 

beautie then honestie, and more are they lamented that dye viciously 

then they loued that Hue vertuously : for thou giuest as it were a sigh, 20 

which all thy companions in the courte seeme by thee to sound also, 

that Lucilla beeing one of so great perfection in all partes of the body 

and so little pietie in the soule, should be as it were snatched out of 

the iawes of so many young gentlemen. Well Philautus, thou takest 

not so much care for the losse of hir as I griefe for thy lewdnesse, 25 

neither canst thou sorrowe more to see hir dye sodeinely, then I to 

heare thee lyue shamefullye. If thou meane to keepe mee as a friende 

shake off those vaine toyes and dalyaunces wyth women, beleeue mee 

Philautus I speake it wyth salt tears trickling downe my cheekes, the 

lyfe thou liuest in court is no lesse'abhorred then the wicked death 30 

of Lucilla detested, & more art thou scorned for thy folly, then she 

hated for hir filthinesse. 

The euill ende of Lucilla should moue thee to begin a good lyfe : 

I haue often warned thee to shunne thy wonted trade, & if thou loue 

me as thou protestest in thy letters, then leaue all thy vices & shewe 35 

it in thy life. If thou meane not to amend thy manners I desire 

thee to write no more to me, for I will neither answere thee nor 

4 honestie] honest reputation E rest 14 vanities E rest 19 of after 

then G rest 20 gauest E rest 21 which] with A 22 the] her E rest 

25 grieue T rest 28 daliance E rest 30 the Court E rest 33 good] 

new C rest


read them. The Iennet is broke" as soone w t a wad as with the 

spurre, a gentleman as well allured with a word as with a swoord. 

Thou concludest in the end that Liuia is sick, truely I am sory for 

shee is a maiden of no lesse comlinesse then modesty, & hard it is 

5 to iudge whether she deserues mare praise for hir beauty with y e 

amorous or admiration for hir honestie of y e vertuous, if y u loue me 

embrace hir, for she is able both to satisfy thine eye for choice, & 

instruct thy heart with learning. Commed me vnto hir, & as I 

praise hir to thee, so wil I pray for hir to God y t either she may 

10 haue pacience to endure hir trouble or deliuerance to scape hir peril. 

Thou desirest me to send thee y e Sermons which were preached of 

late in Athens. I haue fulfilled thy request, but I feare me thou 

wilt vse them as S. George doth his horse, who is euer on his backe 

but neuer rideth, but if thou wert as willing to read them, as I was to 

15 send them, or as ready to follow them, as desirous to haue them, it 

shall not repent thee of thy labour, nor me of my cost. And thus 

farewell. 

Euphncs to Botonio, to take 

his exile patiently. 

20 IF were as wise to giue thee counsaile, as I am willing to do 

thee good, or as able to set thee at libertie, as desirous to haue 

thee free, thou shouldest neither want good aduice to guyde thee, 

nor sufficient helpe to restore thee. Thou takest it heauylye that 

thou shouldest bee accused without colour, and exiled wythout 

25 cause: and I thincke thee happy to be so well rydde of the courte 

and to bee so voyde of crime. Thou sayest banishment is bitter to 

the free borne, and I deeme it the better if thou bee wythout blame. 

There bee manye meates which are sowre in the mouth and sharpe in 

the mawe, but if thou mingle them wyth sweete sawces, they yeelde 

30 both a pleasaunt taste and holesome nourishment: Diuers colours 

offende the eyes, yet hauinge greene amonge them whet the sight. 

I speake this to this ende, that though thy exile seeme grieuous to 

thee, yet guiding thy selfe with the rules of Philosophye it shall bee 

more tollerable: hee that is colde doth not couer himselfe wyth 

35 care, but with clothes, he that is washed in y e rayne dryeth himselfe 

by the fire not by his fancie, and thou which art bannished oughtest 

1 as soone broken E rest 4 madyen A 6 y e vertuous] vertues A 

thou T rest 10 escape G rest 13 saint T-G 24 exiled] banished 

C rest 26 to 1 om. T rest

314 EUPHUES 

not with teares to bewaile thy hap, but with wisedome to heale thy 

hurt. 

Nature hath giuen no man a country no more then she hath 

a house, or lads, or liuings. Socrates would neither call himselfe 

an Athenian, neither a Grecian, but a Citize of y e world. Plato 5 

would neuer accompt him banished y t had the Sunne, Fire, Aire, 

Water, & Earth, that he had before, where he felt the Winters blast 

and the Summers blaze, wher y e same Sunne & the same Moone 

shined, whereby he noted that euery place was a countrey to a wise 

man, and all partes a pallaice to a quiet minde. 10 

But thou art driuen out of Naples? that is nothing. All the 

Athenians dwell not in Colliton, nor euery Corinthian in Grcecia, nor 

all the Lacedemonians in Pitania, How can any part of the world 

bee distant farre from the other, when as the Mathematicians set 

downe that the earth is but a pointe being compared to y e heauens. 15 

Learne of the Bee as wel to gather Honny of the weede as the flowre, 

and out of farre countries to liuc, as wel as in thine owne. 

He is to be laughed at which thincketh the Moone better at 

Athens then at Corinth, or the Honnye of the Bee sweeter that is 

gathered in Hybla then that which is made in Mantua ? when it was 20 

cast in Diogenes teeth that the Synoponetes had banished hym Pontus, 

yea, sayde hee, I them of Diogenes. I maye saye to thee as Stratonicus 

sayde to his guest, who demaunded what faulte was punished 

wyth exile, and hee aunsweringe falshoode, why then sayde Stratonicus 

dost not thou practise deceite to the ende thou maist auoyde the 25 

myschiefes that followe in thy countrey. 

And surely if conscience be the cause thou art banished the court, 

I accompt thee wise in being so precise y t by the vsing of vertue 

thou maist be exiled the place of vice. Better it is for thee to Hue with 

honesty in y e country then w t honour in the court, & greater wil thy 30 

praise be by flying vanitie, then thy pleasure in followinge traines. 

Choose tha.t place for thy palaice which is most quiet, custome will 

make it thy countrey, and an honest life will cause it a pleasaunt 

liuinge. Philip falling in the dust, and seeing the figure of his 

shape perfect in shewe: Good God sayd he, we desire y e whole 35 

earth and see how little, serueth ? Zeno hearing that this onely barke 

wherein all his wealth was shipped to haue perished, cryed out, thou 

1 with 2 ] in £ rest 3 no 1 ] to G rest 4 a om. Erest 6 Fire, om.Erest 

12 Colliton so all 18 the] that C-E 19 the 2 ] a F rest 20 Hyblia E 1 

22, 24 Straconicus all old eds. 26 flow T rest thy] the EF 31 by] 

in T rest 33 cause] make G rest 36 this] his E rest


hast done well Fortune to thrust me into my gowne agayne to 

embrace Philosophy: thou hast therefore in my minde great cause 

to reioyce, that God by punishment hath compelled thee to stricktnesse 

of lyfe which by lybertie might haue ben growen to lewdnesse. 

5 When thou hast not one place assigned thee wherein to liue, but 

one forbidden thee which thou must leaue, then thou beeing denied 

but one, that excepted thou maist choose any. Moreouer this 

dispute with thy selfe, I beare no office whereby I shoulde eyther 

for feare please the noble, or for gaine oppresse the needy. I am 

10 no Arbiter in doubtfull cases, whereby I should eyther peruerte 

Iustice or incurre displeasure. I am free from the iniuries of the 

stronge and mallice of the weake. I am out of the broiles of 

the sedytious, and haue escaped the threates of the ambitious. But 

as hee that hauinge a fayre Orchardc, seeing one tree blasted, 

15 recompteth the discommodity of that & passeth ouer in silence 

the fruytfulnesse of the other: So hee y t is banished doth alwayes 

lament y° losse of his house & the shame of his exile, not reioysing 

at the liberty, quyetnesse & pleasure y t he enioyeth by y t sweet 

punishment. The kinges of Persia were deemed happy that they 

20 kepte their Winter in Babilon, in Media their Summer, and their 

Spring in Susis: and certeynly the Exile may in this be as happy 

as any king in Persia, for he may at his leasure, beeing at his owne 

pleasure, lead his Winter in Athens, his Summer in Naples, his 

Spring at Argos. But if hee haue anye business in hande, he may 

25 studie without trouble, sleepe without care, and wake at his will 

without controlment. Aristotle must dine when it pleaseth Philips 

Diogenes when it lysteth Diogenes, the courtier suppeth when the 

king is satisfied, but Botonio may now eate when Botonio is an 

hungred. 

30 But thou sayst that banishment is shamefull. No truly, no more 

then pouertie to the content, or graye haires to the aged. It is the 

cause that maketh thee shame. If thou wert banished vpon choller 

greater is thy credite in sustayninge. wronge then thine enemies in 

committinge iniurie, and lesse shame is it to thee to be oppressed 

35 by might, then theirs that wrought it for mallyce. But thou fearest 

5 therin C rest 6 must] maist G rest 7 thus 1631-6 10 Arbiter A 

1623: Arbiterer T: arbiterer M: arbitrer C-1013, 1631, 1636: Arbiteer 1617 

16 alway E 19-20 that... kepte] in that they passed T rest 20 their 3 ] the 

E rest 21 in this may T rest 22 leasure, beeing at] leasure beginne E rest 

24 at] in T rest 27 lusteth E rest 33 thine enemies] thy enuyes A-G 

34 it is E 2 rest

316 EUPHUES 

thou shalt not thriue in a straunge nation, certeynly thou art more 

afrayde then hurte, the Pine tree groweth as soone in Pharo as in 

Ida, the Nightingale singeth as sweetly in the desarts as in the 

woodes of Crete, the wiseman lyueth as well in a farre country as in 

his owne home. It is not the nature of the place but the disposition 5 

of the person that maketh the lyfe pleasaunt. Seeing therefore 

Botonio, that all the Sea is apte for anye fishe, that it is a badde 

grounde where no flower will growe, that to a wise man all landes 

are as fertile as his owne enherytaunce, I desire thee to temper the 

sharpenesse of thy banishment with the sweetenesse of the cause, 10 

and to measure the clearenesse of thine owne conscience with the 

spite of thy enemyes quarrell, so shalt thou reuenge their mallyce 

with patience and endure thy banishment with pleasure. 

Enphucs to a young gentleman in Athens named 

Alcius, who leaning his studio follow- I5 

cd all lyghtnes and lyued both sliame- 

/ally and sinfully to the griefe of 

his friends and discredite of the 

Vniuersitie. 

IF I should talke in words of those things which I haue to 20 

conferre with thee in writinges, certes thou wouldest blush 

for shame, and I weepe for sorrow, neyther could my tongue vtter 

that with patiece which my hand can scarce write with modestie, 

neyther could thy eares heare that without glowing which thine eyes 

can hardly view without griefe. Ah Aldus, I can not tell whether 25 

I should most lament in thee thy want of learning, or thy wanton 

lyuinge, in the one thou arte inferiour to all men, in the other 

superiour to all beasts. Insomuch as who seeth thy dull wit & 

marketh thy froward will may well say that he neuer saw smacke 

of learning in thy doings, nor sparke of relygion in thy lyfe. Thou 30 

onely vauntest of thy gentry, truely thou wast made a gentleman 

before thou knewest what honestie ment, & no more hast thou to 

bosl of thy stock the he who beeing left rich by his father, dyeth 

a begger by his folly. Nobilytie began, in thy auncestours and 

2 Pharao C-F: Pharos 1613 rest 3 sweete E rest 8 a] the Frest 

12 thine E rest their] thy E rest 14 Naples T rest 23 hands 

E 2- 1613: 1617 rest om. patience . . . write with 24 thy] thine E rest 

thine] mine E rest 26 mosttm. C rest 31 was F 33 who] y t 

C rest 34 - thine T rest


endeth in thee, and the Generositie that they gayned by vertue, 

thou hast blotted with vice. If thou clayme gentry by petegree, 

practise gentlenesse by thine honestie, that as thou challengest to 

be noble in blood thou maist also proue noble by knowledge, other- 

5 wise shalt thou hang lyke a blast among the faire blossoms and lyke 

a stayne in a peece of white lawne. 

The Rose that is eaten with the Canker is not gathered bicause 

it groweth on that stalke that the sweet doth, neyther was Helen 

made a Starre bicause shee came of that Egge with Castor, nor thou 

10 a gentleman in y t thy auncestours were of nobilytie. It is not the 

descent of birth, but the consent of conditions that maketh gentlemen, 

neyther great mannors but good manners that expresse the 

true Image of dignitie. There is copper coine of the stampe that 

gold is, yet is it not currant, there commeth poyson of the fish as 

15 well as good oyle yet is it not wholesome, and of man may proceede 

an euill childe and yet no gentleman. For as the Wine that runneth 

on the lees, is not therefore to be accompted neate bicause it was 

drawne of the same peece: or as the water that springeth from the 

fountaines head and floweth into the filthye channell is not to be 

20 called cleere bicause it came of the same streame : so neyther is he 

that discendeth of noble parentage, if he desist from noble deedes, 

to be esteemed a gentleman in that he issued from the loynes of 

a noble sire, for that he obscureth the parentes he came off, and 

discrediteth his owne estate. There is no gentleman in Athens but 

25 soroweth to see thy behauiour so farre to disagree from thy birth, 

for this say they all (which is the chiefest note of a gentleman) that 

thou shouldest as well desire honestie in thy lyfe as honour by thy 

lynage, that thy nature should not swerue from thy name, that as 

thou by duetie woldest be regarded for thy progeny, so thou wouldest 

30 endeauour by deserts to be reiferenced for thy pietie. 

The pure Corall is chosen as well by his vertue as his colour, 

a king is knowne better by his courage then his crowne, a righte 

gentleman is sooner seene by the tryall of his vertue then biasing 

of his armes. 

35 But I lette passe thy-birthe, wishing thee rather with Vlysses 

to shew it in workes, then with Aiax to boast of it with wordes, 

thy stocke shall not be the lesse but thy modesty the greater. Thou 

1 ended F rest 2 pedegree G-1613: pedigree 1617 rest 4 in] by 

G rest 5 y u C the] thy E l 21 descendeth T rest desist] differ 

B rest 28 swearue C: swarue G rest 29 shouldst E rest shouldest 

E 2 rest 37 the 1 om. E rest

318 EUPHUES 

liuest in Athens as the Waspe doth among Bees, rather to sting the 

to gather Honny, and thou dealest with most of thy acquaintaunce 

as the Dogge doth in the maunger, who neyther suffered! the Horse 

to eate haye, nor will himselfe, for thou beeing idle, wilt not permitte 

any (as farre as in thee lyeth) to be well employed. Thou art an 5 

heyre to fayre lyuing, that is nothing, if thou be disherited of learning, 

for better were it to thee to enherit righteousnesse then riches, and 

farre more seemely were it for thee to haue thy studdye full of bookes, 

then thy purse full of money, to gette goodes is the benefite of 

Fortune, to keepe them the gifte of Wisedome. As therefore thou 10 

art to possesse them by thy fathers will, so arte thou to encrease 

them by thine owne witte. 

But alas, why desirest thou to haue the reuenewes of thy parent 

& nothing regardest to haue his vertues ? seekest thou by succession 

to enioye thy patrimony, and by vyce to obscure his pietie ? wilt 15 

thou haue the tytle of his honour and no touch of his honestie ? 

Ah Aldus remember y t thou arte borne not to lyue after thine owne 

luste, but to learne to dye, whereby thou mayste lyue after thy death. 

I haue often hearde thy father saye and that with a deepe sighe the 

teares tricklinge downe his graye haires that thy mother neuer longed 20 

more to haue thee borne when she was in trauaile, then hee to haue 

thee dead to rydde him of trouble. And not seldome hath thy 

mother wished, that eyther hir wombe had ben thy graue or y e 

ground hirs. Yea, al thy friends with open mouth desire eyther 

that God will send thee grace to amende thy lyfe, or griefe to hasten 25 

thy death. Thou wilt demaunde of mee in what thou dost offend : 

and I aske thee in what thou dost not shine. Thou swearest thou 

arte not couetous, but I saye thou arte prodigall, and as much 

sinneth he that lauisheth without meane, as he that hoordeth without 

measure. But canst thou excuse thy selfe of vice in y t thou art not 30 

couetous ? certeinly no more then the murtherer would therefore be 

guiltlesse bicause he is no coyner. 

But why go I about to debate reason w t thee when thou hast 

no regard of honestie ? though I leaue heere to perswade thee, yet 

will I not cease to pray for thee. In the meane season I desire thee, 35 

yea, & in Gods name commaund thee that if neither the care of thy 

parents whom thou shouldest comfort, nor the counsaile of thy friends 

1 the before Bees E 2 rest 17 not born G rest 21 trauile C: trauell 

1631-6 22 troubles E rest 24-5 that eyther G rest 31 coulde E 2 rest 

35 I will F 36 I before command G rest that om. £ 2 rest


which thou shouldest credit, nor the rigor of the lawe which thou 

oughtest to feare, nor the authority of the Magistrate which thou 

shouldest reuerence, can allure thee to grace: yet the lawe of thy 

Sauiour who hath redeemed thee, and the punishment of the al- 

5 mightie who continually threatneth thee, draw thee to amendement, 

otherwise as thou liuest now in sinne, so shalt thou die with shame 

and remaine with Sathan, from whome he that made thee, keepe 

thee. 

Linia from the Empcrours court, to 

10 

Eupkues at Athens. 

IF sickenesse had not put mee to silence and the weaknesse of 

my body hindred the willingnesse of my minde, thou shouldest 

haue had a more speedy aunswere, and I no cause of excuse. 

I knowe it expedient to retourne an aunswere, but not necessary 

15 to wryte it in poste, for that in thinges of great importaunce wee 

commonly looke before wee leape, and where the heart droupeth 

through faintnesse, the hande is enforced to shake through feeblenesse. 

Thou sayest thou vnderstandest howe men liue in the courte, 

and of me thou desirest to knowe the estate of women, certes to 

20 dissemble with thee were to deceiue my selfe and to cloake the 

vanities in court were to clogge mine owne conscience wyth vices. 

The Empresse keepeth hir estate royall and hir maydens will not 

leese an ynch of their honour, shee endeauoureth to sette downe 

good lawes and they to breake them, shee warneth them of excesse 

25 and they studye to exceede, she sayth that decent attire is good 

thoughe it be not costly, and they sweare vnlesse it bee deere it is 

not comely. She is heere accompted a slut that commeth not in 

hir silkes, and shee that hath not euerye fashion, hath no mans 

fauour. They that be most wanton are reputed most wise, and they 

30 that be the idlest liuers are deemed the finest louers. There is great 

quarrelling for beautie, but no question of honestie: to conclude, 

both women and men haue fallen heere in court to such agreement 

that they neuer iarre about matters of religion, bycause they neuer 

meane to reason of them. I haue wished oftentimes rather in the 

35 countrey to spinne, then in the courte to dawnce, and truely a 

distaffe doth better become a mayden then a Lute, and fitter it is 

1 thou shouldest credit. . . which om. E rest 5 should before drawe G rest 

15 it om. T rest 21 vanitie E rest 27 for before a C rest 30 

the 1 om. C

32o EUPHUES 

with the nedle to practise howe to Hue, then with the pen to learne 

how to loue. 

The Empresse gyueth ensample of vertue, and the Ladyes haue 

no leasure to followe hir. I haue nothing els to write. Heere is 

no good newes, as for badde, I haue tolde sufficient: yet this I must 5 

adde that some there bee whiche for their vertue deserue prayse, but 

they are onely commended for theire beautie, for this thincke courtiers, 

that to be honest is a certeine kinde of countrey modestie, but 

to bee amiable the courtly curtesie. 

I meane shortly to sue to the Empresse to bee dysmissed of the 10 

court, which if I obtayne I shall thincke it a good rewarde for my 

seruice to bee so well rydde from such seueritie, for beleeue mee 

there is scarce one in courte that eyther feareth GOD, or meaneth 

good. I thancke thee for the booke thou dyddest sende mee, and 

as occasion shall serue I wyll requyte thee. Philautus beginneth 15 

a little to lysten to counsayle, I wishe him well and thee too, of 

whome to heare so muche good it doth mee not a little good. 

Pray for mee as I doe for thee, and if opportunitie be offered write 

to me. Farewell. 

D 

Euphnes to his friend 

Liuia, 

Eare Lima, I am as gladde to heare of thy welfare as sorrowfull 

to vnderstande thy newes, and it doth mee as much good that 

thou art recouered, as harme to thincke of those which are not to 

be recured. Thou hast satisfied my request and aunswered my 25 

expectation. For I longed to knowe the manners of women, and 

looked to haue them wanton. I lyke thee well that thou wylte not 

conceale their vanities, but I loue thee the better that thou doest 

not followe them, to reproue sinne is the signe of true honour, to 

renounce it the part of honestie. All good men wyll accompte thee 30 

wyse for thy truth, and happye for thy tryall, for they saye, to 

absteine from pleasure is the chiefest pietie, and I thincke in courte 

to refraine from vice is no little vertue. Straunge it is that the 

sounde eye viewinge the.sore shoulde not be dimmed, that they that 

handle pitch should not be defiled, that they that continue in court 35 

5 must] may E rest 8 countrey A CG: countey T: country M; Country 

E rest 12 securitie G rest 15 requyte] write to E rest 17 not me E rest 

24 which] that G rest " 34 viewinge] viewing of E rest 34-5 he that 

handleth G rest 35 in] in the C G E 2 rest; the E 1 

20


should not be infected. And yet it is no great meruaile for by 

experience we see y t the Adamant cannot drawe yron if y e Diamond 

lye by it, nor vice allure y e courtier if vertue be retained. Thou 

praysest the Empresse for instituting good lawes, and grieuest to 

5 see them violated by the Ladyes. I am sory to thincke it should 

be so, and I sigh in that it cannot be otherwise. Wher ther is no 

heed take" of a commaundement, there is small hope to be looked 

for of amendement. Where duetie can haue no show, honestie can 

beare no sway. They that cannot be enforced to obedience by 

10 authoritie, will neuer be wonne by fauour, for beeing without feare, 

they commonly are voide of grace: & as farre be they caried from 

honour as they be from awe, and as ready to dispise the good 

counsaile of their Peeres, as to contemne the good lawes of their 

Prince. But the breaking of lawes doth not accuse the Empresse 

15 of vice, neither shall hir makinge of them excuse the ladies of 

vanities. The Empresse is no more to be suspected of erring then 

the Carpenter that buildeth the house bee accused bicause theeues 

haue broken it, or the Mintmaister condemned for his coyne bicause 

the traitor hath clipped it. Certeinly God wil both reward the godly 

20 zeale of the Prince, and reuenge the godlesse doinges of the people. 

Moreouer thou saist that in the court all be sluttes that swimme 

not in silkes, and that the idlest liuers are accompted the brauest 

louers. I cannot tell whether I should rather laugh at their folly 

or lament their phrensie, neither do I know whether the sinne bee 

25 greater in apparel which moueth to pride, or in affection which 

entiseth to peeuishnesse: the one causeth the" to forget themselues, 

y e other to forgo their sences, ech do deceiue their soule. They 

y t thinck one cannot be cleanly without pride, wil quickly iudge 

none to be honest without pleasure, which is as hard to confesse 

30 as to saye no meane to bee without excesse: thou wishest to be 

in the country wyth thy distaffe rather then to continue in the court 

w* thy delights. I cannot blame thee, for Greece is as much to be 

commended for learning, as the court for brauery, & here maist thou 

liue with as good report for thine honestie, as they wyth renowme 

35 for their beau tie. It is better to spinne with Penelope all night then 

to sing with Helen all daye. Huswifery in the countrey is as much 

praysed as honour in the court. We thinke it as great mirth to sing 

Psalmes, as you melody to chaunt Sonnets, & we accompt them 

11 caried] carelesse A-F 27 forgo] forge E 2 F do A-E 1 : to 

E 2 rest 33 codemned E rest 

BOND I Y

322 EUPHUES 

as wyse that keepe their owne lands with credite, as you those that 

gette others lyuings by craft. Therefore if thou wilt follow my 

aduise and prosecute thine owne determination thou shalt come out 

of a warme Sunne into Gods blessing. Thou addest (I feare me 

also thou errest) that in the courte there be some of great vertue, 5 

wisedome and sobrietie, if it be so I lyke it, and in that thou sayst 

it is so, I beleeue it. It may be, and no doubte it is in the courte 

as in all riuers some Fish some Frogs, and as in all gardeins some 

flowers some weeds, and as in all trees some blossoms some blasts. 

Nylus breedeth the pretious stone and the poysoned Serpent. The 1o 

court may as wel nourish vertuous Matrones as the lewde Minion. 

Yet this maketh me muse y t they should rather bee commended 

for their beautie then for their vertue, which is an infallible argument 

that the delyghts of the flesh are preferred before y e holynesse of the 

spirite. Thou sayst thou wilt sue to leaue thy seruice and I wil 15 

pray for thy good successe, when thou art come into the country 

I would haue thee first learne to forget all those thinges which 

thou hast seene in the court. I woulde Philautus were of thy 

minde to forsake his youthfull course, but I am glad thou writest 

that he beginneth to amend his condicions : he runneth farre that 20 

neuer retourneth, and hee sinneth deadly that neuer repenteth. 

I would haue him ende as Lucilla began without vyce, and not 

beginne as she ended without honestie. I loue the man well, but 

I cannot brooke his manners. Yet I conceiue a good hope that in 

his age he will be wise, for that in his youth I perceiued him wittie. 25 

Hee hath promised to come to Athens, which if he doe, I will so 

handle the matter that eyther he shall abiure the court for euer or 

absent himselfe for a yeare. If I bring the one to passe he shall 

forgoe his olde course, if the other forget his ill condicions. He 

that in court will thriue to reape wealth, and lyue warie to gette 30 

worship, must gayne by good conscience, and clyme by wisedome, 

otherwise his thrift is but theft where ther is no regard of gathering, 

and his honour but ambition, where there is no care but of promotion. 

Philautus is too simple to vnderstand the wyles in courte, and 

too young to vndermine any by crafte. Yet hath he showen himselfe 35 

as farre from honestie as he is from age, and as full of crafte as he 

is of courage. If it were for thy preferment and his amendment, 

I wish you were both married; but if he should continue his folly 

whereby thou shouldest fal from thy duetie I rather wish you both 

17 these EF 24 yet before I 1 G rest 33 of] for E rest


buryed. Salute him in my name and hasten his iourney, but forgette 

not thine owne. I haue occasion to goe to Naples, that I may 

with more speede arriue in Englande, where I haue heard of a woman 

that in all quallyties excelleth any man. which if it be so I shall 

5 thinke my labour as well bestowed as Saba did hirs, when shee 

trauayled to see Salomon. At my goinge if thou bee in Naples 

I will visite thee and at my retourne I will tell thee my iudgement. 

If Philautus come this Winter, he shall in this my pilgrimage be 

a partner, a pleasant companion is a bayte in a iourney. We shall 

10 there as I heare see a courte both brauer in shewe and better in 

substaunce, more gallaunt courtiers, more godlye consciences, as 

faire Ladyes and fairer conditions. But I will not vaunt before the 

victorie, nor sweare it is so vntill I see it be so. Farewell vnto 

whome aboue all I wish well. 

15 T Haue finished the first part of Euphues whome now 

A I lefte readye to crosse the Seas to Englande, if the 

winde sende him a shorte cutte you shall in the 

seconde part heare what newes he bringeth 

and I hope to haue him retourned 

20 within one Summer. In the 

meane season I wil stay 

for him in the country 

and as soone as he arriueth 

you shall 

25 know of his 

comming. 

FINIS. 

7 and om. C rest 10 braue E rest 11 consciences 1613 rest: consciues A-F 

15 - 2 61 Haue .. . comming. A GE rest print like the rest of the tale in black letter', Min 

small romans,Cin ordinary romans 19 and om. Crest retournued A 27 

After Finis. A gives merely the printer East's device of a horse, without any colophon. 

1 append the colophons found in M, C, G, D and No. 7 respectively', copying that 

of D from Prof. Arber's Reprint, and that of No. 7 from Hazlitfs Handbook, 1867. 

No later known ed. contains any colophon. T lacks the last two leaves 

ColophonU Imprinted at London by Thomas East, for | Gabriel Cawooa 

of M.dwelling in Paules Churchyard. \ 1579. 

Colophon Imprinted at London by Thomas | East, for Gabriell Cawood 

of C.dwelling | in Paules Church-yard. | 1580. 

Colophon5F Imprinted at London by | Thomas East, for Gabriel Cawood, 

of G.dwelling in Paules Church-|yard. 1581. 

ColophonAT LONDON printed by Thomas East for Gabriel Cawood 

of D.dwelling in Paules Churchyard. 1585. 

ColophonAt London Printed by Thomas East for Gabriel Cawood, dwellinj 

of No. 7. in Pauls Churchyard. 1587. 

Y 2

To my very good friends the 

Gentlemen Scholers of Oxford 1 . 

THere is no priuiledge that needeth a pardon, neither is there 

any remission to be asked where a commission is graunted. 

I speake this Gentlemen, not to excuse the offence which is taken, 5 

but to offer a defence where I was mistaken. A cleere conscience 

is a sure card, truth hath the prerogatiue to speak with plainnes, 

& the modesty to beare with patience. It was reported by some & 

beleeued of many, that in the education of Ephcebus, where mention 

was made of Vniuersities, that Oxford was too much either defaced 10 

or defamed. I knowe not what the enuious haue picked out by 

mallice, or the curious by wit, or the guiltie by their owne galled 

consciences, but this I say, that I was as far from thinking ill, as 

I finde them from iudgeing well. But if I should now go about to 

make amends, I were the" faultie in somwhat amisse, and should 15 

1 This Address to the Gentlemen Scholars is given from M\ the Bodleian copy 

of the third edition (collated with T and C-F), where it appears as an appendix 

after the colophon, occupying the whole of one leaf signed and a portion of 

a second. From M 2 , the only other copy of the third edition known to me, the 

Address has been lost. Its appearance at the end is somewhat peculiar, for in the 

second edition, T, where it first appeared, the two leaves () containing it were 

inserted between sigs. A and B immediately before the tale, and this difference of 

position may seem to favour an order for the two editions the reverse of that which 

I have adopted. But the change in M may be referable to a mistake in stitching 

the sheets; or its original position in the surviving copy of T'may be so explicable; 

or, as is more probable, the intermediate character of the Address, which directs 

attention to the sequel, was emphasized in Lyly's mind by the approaching completion 

of that sequel. The first edition of Euphues and his England was to 

appear early in 1580; and Lyly, finding a third edition of The Anatomy of Wit 

called for before Christmas, 1579, transfers this apologetic and transitional Address 

to the end of the book. In the fourth edition however (C, Easter, 1580), it is 

restored to its former position, and compressed into a single leaf, no longer signed 

exceptionally , but taken up into the regular system of signature by fours, 

appearing as B, while the tale commences on the next leaf, signed B ij, and 

numbered ' 2.' In the fifth edition (G, 1581) the identification of the Address with 

the tale is carried still further by printing it, like the tale, in black letter. I have 

retained it at the end as in M l —a position in which its intermediate character is 

best marked. 

8 by] of G rest 10 was'] is G rest 14 now om. E rest

TO THE GENTLEMEN SCHOLERS OF OXFORD 325 

shew my selfe lyke Appelles Prentice, who coueting to mend the 

nose, marred the cheeke: and not vnlyke the foolish Diar, who 

neuer thought his cloth blacke vntil it was burned. If any fault be 

committed impute it to Euphues, who knew you not, not to Lylly 

5 who hates you not. 

Yet may I of all the rest most condemne Oxford of vnkindnes, of 

vice I cannot, who seemed to weane me before she brought me 

foorth, and to giue me boanes to gnaw, before I could get the teate 

to sucke. Wherin she played the nice mother in siding me into the 

10 country to nurse, where I tyred at a dry breast three yeares, and was 

at the last enforced to weane my self. But it was destinie, for if 

I had not bene gathered from the tree in the budde, I should beeing 

blowne haue proued a blast, and as good it is to bee an addle egge 

as an idle bird. 

15 Euphues at his ariuall I am assured will view Oxforde, where he 

will either recant his sayinges, or renew his complaintes, hee is now 

on the seas, & how he hath ben tossed I know not, but whereas I had 

thought to receiue him at Douer, I must meete him at Hampton. 

Nothing can hinder his comming but death, neither any thing 

20 hasten his departure but vnkindnesse. 

Concerning my selfe I haue alwayes thought so reuerently of 

Oxford, of the Schollers, of the manners, that I seemed to be 

rather an Idolater, then a blasphemer. They that inuented this toy 

were vnwise, & they that reported it vnkinde, and yet none of them 

25 can proue me vnhonest. 

But suppose I glaunced at some abuses: Did not Iupiters Egge 

bring foorth aswel Helen a light huswife in earth, as Castor a light 

Starre in Heauen? The Estritch that taketh the greatest pride in 

hir fethers, picketh some of the worst out and burneth them, ther is 

30 no tree but hath some blast, h0 countenaunce but hath some 

blemish, and shall Oxford then bee blamelesse ? I wish it were so, 

yet I cannot thinke it is so. But as it is, it may be better, & were 

it badder it is not the worst. 

I thinke there are fewe Vniuersities that haue lesse faults then 

35 Oxford, many that haue more, none but hath some. 

But I commit my cause to the consciences of those, that either 

know what I am, or can gesse what I shold be, the one will aunswere 

4 Lyly CG: Lylie E rest 5 hate G 17 had TM 1 only 22 of the 2 ] 

and of the EF; and of their 1613 rest 27 light 2 ] bright E 2 rest 32 yet] 

but C rest 35 hath] haue G rest

326 TO THE GENTLEMEN SCHOLERS OF OXFORD 

themselues in construing friendly, the other if I knew them I would 

satisfie reasonably. 

Thus loath to incurre the suspition of vnkindenesse in not telling 

my minde, and not willyng to 

make any excuse where there need no amends, 5 

I can neither craue pardon, least I shoulde 

confesse a faulte, nor conceale my 

meaning, least I shoulde bee 

thought a foole. And so 

I ende, yours assu- 10 

red to vse. 

Iohn Lylly. 

12 Lyly CG: Lylie E rest, exc, 1617 Lillie

NOTES 

THE ANATOMY OF WYT 

Page 177. Title. EUPHVES. THE ANATOMY OF WYT: 

The name of Lyly's hero, and the suggestion for his second title, The 

Anatomy [or Explanation] of Wyt is borrowed, as Morley says {Eng. 

Writers, viii. 301), from Roger Ascham's Scholemaster (1570), p. 38, 

ed. Arb.—'But concerning the trewe notes of the best wittes for learning 

in a childe, I will reporte, not myne own opinion, but the very Judgement 

of him, that was counted tke best teacher and wisest man that learning 

maketh mention of, and that is Socrates in Plato (Plato in 7 de Rep.), 

who expresseth orderlie thies seuen plaine notes to choise a good witte in 

a child for learninge. 

_ A n d bicause I write English, 

and to Englishemen, I will plainlie declare in Englishe both, what thies 

wordes of Plato meane, and how aptlie they be linked, and how orderlie 

they folow one an other. 

' 1. Is he, that is apte by goodnes of witte, and appliable 

by readines of will, to learning, hauing all other qualities of the minde 

and partes of the bodie, that must an other day serue learning, not 

trobled, mangled, and halfed, but sounde, whole, full, and hable to do 

their office,' &c. The literal meaning of is ' well-natured/ Lyly's 

general idea seems to be a young man of good birth and breeding. 

The fame of Lyly's book induced his contemporaries to borrow the 

name of his hero for their own title-pages, e.g. Greene's Eufihues his 

censure to Philautus, 1587, and Menafihon. Camillas Alarum to slumbering 

Eufihues, in his melancholie Cell at Silexedra, 1589: Lodge's 

Rosalynd. Eufihues Golden Legacie, 1590, and Eufihues Shadow, 1592: 

while the second title is imitated in Stubbes' Anatomie of Abuses, 1583, 

and Nash's Anatomie of Absurditie, 1589. 

P. 179, lines 1-3. Dedication: To . .. Sir William West Knight, Lord 

Delaware: for this person see Life, pp. 12, 20, and genealogy, p. 48. 

Lyly's relation to him must remain obscure. 

7. Parativsi Parrhasius. The story, like that of Alexander and 

Apelles below, is of Lyly's invention. Neither is found in Pliny or Plutarch, 

his sources for most of these tales of the painters.

328 NOTES 

9. Vulcan ... with hir Mole. Lyly is thinking of Cicero, De Natura 

Deorum, i. 29. 80-3, where Cicero questions whether we are to conceive 

the gods as having slight physical blemishes — moles [naevos) are 

mentioned—and praises a statue of Vulcan by Alcamenes,' in quo apparet 

claudicatio non deformis.' 

10. poltfoote: club foot, lit. chicken foot; again of Vulcan, p. 239. 

18. quod: older form of * quoth/ 

19. finest Veluet with his bracke : i.e. break, flaw. Repeated p. 184. , 

This set of comparisons (as Mr. P. A. Daniel points out to me) is verbally 

borrowed in A Merrie Knack to Know a Knave, c. 1590 : 

'As the rose hath his prickle, the finest velvet his brack, 

The fairest flower his bran, so the best wit his wanton will.' 

(Hazlitt's Dodsley, vi. 525.) 

24. Cyrus. . hoked nose: Plutarch, Reg. et Imp. Apophtheg. Cyri I, 

says the Persians love hooked noses because Cyrus' was such. Again, 

p. 57,1. 21. 

26. Homer . . .flattering. Perhaps from Plutarch, De Audiendis 

Poetis, c. iv. (ad init.). 

27. Alexander .. . quaffing: i. e. Plutarch, who decides the question 

against his hero (Quaest. Conv. i. 6). 

Demonydes . .. crooked shooe .. . wry foote: Plutarch, De Aud. Poet. 

c. iii. (ad fin.), where the cripple Demonides ' hoped his shoes would fit' 

the man who had stolen them. Cf. like imagery, yol. ii. p. 7,11. 5-10; 

Endim. v. 3. no. 

P. 180,1. Damocles, &c. There was a beautiful Athenian boy of that 

name (Plut. Demetrius, xxiv. 2). 

9. ought not to impute it to the iniquitie of the author. So Geoffrey 

Fenton in the Epistle Ded. of his Tragicall Discourses, 1567, explains 

that his licentious passages are intended morally, ' approuing sufficiently 

the inconuenience happenynge by the pursuite of lycenceous desyer.' 

But whatever might be said of Fenton, or of Gascoigne's Hundreth 

Flowres, 1573, Lyly's work always respects the decencies. 

28. latchet: shoe-strap. Pliny, xxxv. 36 assigns the saying to Apelles. 

P. 181, 2. neete ... Iuie-bush: ivy was sacred, to Bacchus. Moth. 

Bomb. ii. 2. 10 ' gone into this Iuy-bush.' 

4. glose: gloss. 

12. payntingis meter for ragged walls th'e fine Marble. Borrowed 

from Pettie's Pallace (ent. S. R. 1576), 'the fyne Marble you knowe 

needeth no paynting, that is needful onely for ragged walles' (fol. 91). 

See Introd. Essay, p. 138, note 2. 

16. beare the whitest mouthes. Four times in Euphues, but not 

elsewhere. (1) Originally of a quiet horse that does not make the bit 

bloody by champing and fretting; Euph. and his Eng. p. 225,1. 7 with a 

gentle rayne they will bear a white mouth,' and p. 21,1. 14 ' his young colt


will neuer beare a white mouth without a harde bridle.' (2) From this sense 

of gentle temper is derived that of mincing, affectation, and fastidiousness, 

as in the present passage, and Euph. and his Eng. p. 82,1. 10 beautifull 

woemen do first of all allure them that haue the wantonnest eyes and 

the whitest mouthes.' 

17. English men desire to he are finer speach, &c.: Introd. Essay, 

pp. 134, 142-3, 148. 

P. 182, 3. packe: the pedlar's pack, hospitable to the popular and 

ephemeral, ballads, broadsides, &c. Cf. Autolycus. 

5-6. at Christmas: entered Sta. Reg, Dec. 2, 1578. 

6. broken: torn. Piers Plow. B. ix. 91 'his broke clothes.' Still 

used in the West. 

7. Haberdasshers: sellers of small wares, pedlars. 

14. fulsome: again p. 266, 1. 10 'fulsome feeding'; and, fig., Moth. 

Bomb. ii. 3. 75 'nothing so fulsome as a shee foole.' 

22. hold the plucking on: endure the strain of pulling on. 

23. last the running ouer: detain a careless reader till the end is 

reached. 

27. deuotion in print: passion for seeing myself in print. 

P. 183, 2. flatterers a thanke . . . currant: if anything win favour, 

there will be plenty to claim the credit of having helped it into notice. 

5. to quippe: to sneer. Cf. p. 184 'smoth quipping.' 

P. 184, 1. There dwelt in Athens: betraying the adoption of matter 

from Guevara (Introd. Essay, pp. 137, 155). 

9. of more wit then wealth, and yet, &c.: cf. p. 185 'a place of 

more pleasure then profite, and yet of more profite then pietie'; and 

p. 84,1. 35 ' of greater beautie the . . . and yet of lesse beautie the",' &c. 

16. Rose . . . veluet: repeated, like Venus' mole below, from Ep. Ded. 

p. 179. 

27. gloses: panegyrics. 

30. freshest colours soonest fade: Pettie's Pallace, fol. 52 v. 'as the 

freshest colours soonest fade the hue ... so [like Euphues] the finer 

wit he was indued withal, the sooner was he made thral and subiect 

to loue.' 

the teenest Rasor. . . tourneth his edge: I retain teenest (altered 

to ' keenest' by E rest) although not given by Skeat or Whitney, being 

convinced of its genuineness by the alliteration ' teenest .. . tourneth' 

corresponding to '/reshest .. .fade' above, and by its recurrence, Euph. 

and his Eng. p. 34,1. 3 ' setting a teene edge.' Probably a popular corruption 

of' keen.' 

P. 185, 1. finest cloathe, &c.: Pettie's Pallace, fol. 65 v. ' no Cloth so 

fine, but Mothes wyl eate it.' 

15. put a rod vnder their gyrdle: again Endim. ii. 2. 14 'Away 

peeuish boy, a rodde were better vnder thy girdle, than loue in thy mouth.

330 

NOTES 

18. retchles: a variant of' reckless'; so in 17th Article l wretchlessness.' 

21. witte... better if ...deerer bought: 'Wit is neuer good till 

it be bought; John Hey wood's Proverbes, 1546 (Sharman's reprint, 

P- 31). 

35. fleetest fishe swalloweth, &c.: cf. p. 210,1.12' the pleasaunt bayte, 

that causeth y e fleetest fish to bite.' 

P. 186, 1. trayneth: is attracted. No other inst. quoted of this intransitive 

use. 

5. soake: cf. Hamlet, iv. 2. 16 'a sponge that soaks up the king's 

countenance.' 

sooth hys person; Sooth, flatter immoderatelie, &c. Baret, 1580' 

(Skeat). So p. 282, 1. 14. 

14. Aristippus: with Damon (above) and Eubulus(p. 12), he figures 

prominently in Edwardes' Damon and Pithias, lie. 1567. 

18. in Crete, I can lye, if in Greece . . . shift, if in Italy . . . court ; so 

again vol. ii. p. 24 11. 18-20. 

21. abstaine with Romulus'. Pliny, xiv. 14 'Romulum lacte non 

vino libasse, indicio sunt sacra ab eo instituta,' a sobriety due to poverty. 

Cf. p. 250, 1. 20. 

22. watch with Chrisippus: the Stoic philosopher, whose zeal in 

learning is mentioned p. 276 (note). 

P. 187, 6. beholdinge: a common mistake for beholden, as in Merry 

Wives, i. 1. 283 (Skeat). 

13. cockeringe: again p. 250,1. 35, and M. Bomb. i. 2. 27 'his sonne 

whom with cockring he hath made wanton,' and King fohn, v. 1. 7 'a 

cockered silken wanton.' 

30. curious knottes : flower-beds of fanciful pattern: cf. ' treade the 

knottes,' p. 205, 1. 7. Landmann quotes L. L. L. i. 1. 249 ' thy curiousknotted 

garden.' 

mixe Hisoppe wyth Timet Landmann quotes Othello, i. 3. 325 

' set hyssop and weed up thyme' (of gardening). 

P. 188, 12. Lacedemonians ,.. shewe . . . dronken men: Plutarch, Life 

of Lycurgus, c. 28 

The other two 

instances—Persian and Parthian—are perhaps of Lyly's invention, founded 

on this. I find nothing in Plutarch or Xenophon. 

23. a woman so exquisite .. . Pigmalions Image, &c.: Landmann 

aptly quotes Meas.for Meas. iii. 2. 49 ' What, is there none of Pygmalion's 

images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting the hand in the 

pocket and extracting it clutched ?'—one of many passages which prove 

Shakespeare's close knowledge of Euphues; for even if Lyly's story had 

an original, the reference to Pygmalion, a favourite with him, was probably 

imported. -


P. 189, 7. pykes: rocks; properly ' sharp points'; common of hills. 

Cf. p. 253,1. 25. 

8. Syrtes... sincke into Semphlagades: for the sake of his antithesis 

Lyly ignores geography, and incurs the imputation of supposing the 

Symplegades quicksands. 

9. Lacedemonian . . . Neapolitan', recalling the three instances 

quoted above ; while the Neapolitan is the speaker, Eubulus. 

13-5. Is not hee accompted... wane? ' Felix quern faciunt aliena 

pericula cautum,' quoted Midas, v. 2. 38, cited as 'versus vulg6 iactatus' 

in Erasmus' Adagia, Basle, 1574 fol. in illustration of Pliny's ' Optimum 

est aliena insania frui,' N. H. xviii. 5. Parallels are also quoted from 

Cicero and Plautus. 

22. crazed: apparently of the first slight crack. P. 205 ' well dothe he 

know that the glasse once erased will with the leaste clappe be cracked.' 

greenest Beeche burnetii faster, &c.: the alchemists in the 

Chanouns Yem. Tale, 375, attribute their failure to the fire being 'nat 

maad of beech': cf. the Alchemist in Gallathea, ii. 3. 78. 

25. most ryfest: ' most frequently,' properly ' abundantly.' As adj. 

and adv. in ME, and cf. Pettie's Pallace, fol. 29 v. ' freshest colours 

soonest fade, and ripest fruite are rifest rotten.' 

32. Colliquintida, &c.: Othello, i. 3. 350' bitter as coloquintida.' The 

colocynth or bitter apple. Withpottage(E rest) forporredge, cf. Midas, Prol. 

33. yron Mole: our ' iron mould.' 

35. staringe andstarke blinde: Hey wood's Proverbes (Reprint, p. 141). 

37. sulloume : sullen. 

thy attyre bee comely, &c.: borrowed, like the situation, in Hamlet, 

i. 3, Polonius and Laertes. 

P. 190, 11. Father and friende; so Callimachus to his uncle, in 

vol. ii. p. 27. 

14. standes mee vppon : cf. p. 52,1. 16, &c. 

16. controwleyou : i. e. rebuke. u 1612 Shelton Quix. i. Pref. 9 ' To 

be controaled for the Evil, or rewarded for the Good' " (Murray). 

23. peeuishnesse: folly. Cf. p, 321,1. 26 'peeuishnesse ... causeth the 

to forgo their sences'; M. Bomb. i. 3. 90 ' Parents in these daies are 

growen pieuish,' and often. 

25. so many men . . , mindes : Ter. Phomiio, ii. 4. 14. 

28. carterly : ' churlish.' 

Plato . . . good company: Camp. i. 2. 43 ' Plato is the best fellow 

of all Phylosophers.' 

29. Tymon : Plutarch's Antonius, c. 70. 

30. S toy ekes . . . lyke stockes; same pun, p. 210, borrowed by Shakespeare, 

Taming, i. I. 31. 

36. smothe; smoulder. Whitney quotes Quarles' Emblems, ii. 14 

' What fenny trash maintains the smoth'ring fires ?'

33 2 NOTES 

P. 191,1. perfumes doth refresh : for the old plural cf. vol. ii. p. 72,1.20 

'them that cares not,' p. 206,1. 11 'windes blasteth towardlyblossomes.' 

9. Palme tree to mounte: possibly Plin. xvi. 81 ' Pondus sustinere 

validae, abies, larix . • . Robur, olea, incurvantur ceduntque ponderi . . . 

Et palmae arbor valida: in diversum enim curvatur,' &c. Cf. vol. ii. 

P. 76,1. 35 ' the more it is loaden the better it beareth.' 

12. haggardnes: wildness, haggard (p. 219,1. 35) being a wild hawk. 

13. haue no shew : again, pp. 209, 1. 32, 321, 1. 8. See note on 

wrinckle, vol. ii. p. 153,1. 13. 

16. pownde spices: Pettie's Pallace, f. 11 v.' as Spices, the more they 

are beaten, the sweeter sent they send forth/ 

28. waxinge and melting brayne: waxinge is merely ' ageing,' 

though of course with pun. 

32. stone Abeston ... once ... hotte . . . neuer colde: the spelling 

Abeston shows that Lyly sometimes looked outside Pliny for his similes. 

Pliny has only (xxxvii. 54) ' Asbestos in Arcadiae montibus nascitur, 

colons ferrei.' But in Barthol. Anglicus, xvi. 12 we find ' Abeston is a 

stone of Archadia with yron colour: and hathe that name of fire. If it 

be ones kyndlyd, it neuer quencheth/ and he refers to Isidore of Seville, 

bk. xv. De Gemmis. Abeston does duty again, Sap. and Ph. iv. 3. 

82, M. Bomb. i. 3.125. Landmann supposed a pun on ' stone.' 

33. fire . . . forced downewarde ? . . . Nature . . . after kinde ? 

Arist. Eth. ii. 1. 2 

P. 192, 4. Impe: graft, offspring; appropriate to ,' Nature,' above. 

Again, p. 248,1. 8. 

6. Cicero . . .followe and obey Nature: this Stoic doctrine, or rather 

Peripatetic modification of it, is the subject of books iii-v of the De Finibus: 

cf. esp. v. 9 'Ita finis bonorum existit, secundum Naturam vivere, 

sic affectum, ut optime affici possit, ad naturamque accommodatissime.' 

8. Aristotle .. . Nature . .. maketh nothing . . . vnperfect: often in 

Aristotle, e. g. De Caelo, ii. 11 

22. youthly: again pp. 194, 1. 7, 250,1. 28 (in G rest), vol. ii. p. 23, 

1. 23 and Fa. Queene, I. v. 7 ' fiers, and full of youthly heat,' 

P. 193, 11. eyther . . . eyther: either ... or. Again p. 209 ' either 

woulde I were . . ., eyther I would we were/ &c, and p. 271,1.12. 

13. canckred: infected or infectious, as in Milton's Arcades, 53 

' cankered venom.' 

18. // is y e disposition of the thought, &c. Hamlet, ii. 2. 252 ' there 

is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.' 

19. The Sun shineth . . . dungehill, &c. : in a volume of devotional 

readings and exercises, The Treasure of Heauenly Philosophie . . . By 

T. P. [Thomas Palfreyman] . . . Imprinted at London for William 

Norton, 1-578, 8°, with which Lyly may have been acquainted, occurs


near the end as an illustration of 'Cleane Minde'—'the Sunne ... is 

nothing more defiled by shining vppon a fowle puddle, noysome carrion, 

or stincking doonghil.' Cf. Hamlet, ii. 2.181 ' if the sun breed maggots in 

a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion,' &c. 

21. Christall toucheth the Toade, and is not poysoned': Pliny, xxxvii. 15 

' Adamas et venena irrita facit.' 

22. birde Trochilus lyuetfr by the mouth : supports itself on. Pliny, 

viii. 37 ' pabuli sui gratia os eius repurgans.' 

29. moyst braine: here clearly of weakness of brain. ' Dry brain,' 

e. g. Touchstone's; is perhaps ' costive brain,' one whose fruits are fragmentary 

and disconnected, ' vented in mangled forms.' 

35. assone catch a Hare with a Taber : again Euph, and his Eng. 

p. 99,1.11. This proverb for impossibility occurs in Hey wood (p. 58, Sharman's 

reprint): the association with music may have originated in the 

creature's supposed melancholy—' melancholy as a hare,' 1 Henry IV, i. 2. 

P. 194, 7. quatted: surfeited, properly pressed down, oppressed. 

Greene's Menaphon, p. 46, ed. Arb. ' quatted with silence.' 

8. quesie: nauseating. No satisfactory parallel for this active sense, 

except R. L. Stevenson's Inland Voyage, p. 132 'a queasy sense' that he 

would never wear dry clothes again (Whitney). 

9. huddles', M. Bombie, ii. 1. 38 ' these old huddles'; also v. 3. 77: 

either of bowed figure or number of wraps (Nares). But cf. p. 247,1. 4, note. 

17. burne hemlocke .. . Bees: Sapho, Prol. at Court, ' burn hemlocke, 

a ranke poyson.' 

21. Camelion . . . most guiles, draweth least breath : reversing or 

altering Barth. Angl. xviii. 21 'and what is in his body is but of lytell 

fleshe & hath but lytell blood . . . And it is sayde that the camelion 

lyueth only by ayre,' which Lyly follows more closely Enditn. iii. 4. 129 

' Loue is a Camelion, which draweth nothing into the mouth but ayre, 

and nourisheth nothing in the bodie but lunges.' Pliny says, xi. 72 

' Chamaeleoni (pulmo) portione maximus, et nihil aliud intus,' and 

xxviii. 29 'cum id animal nullo cibo vivat,' cf. xi. 31. Hamlet (iii. 2. 93) 

fares ' of the chameleon's dish: I tat the air, promise-crammed.' 

25. wayed without: i. e. from outside, by others. 

27. Birde Taurus : Plin. x. 57 ' Est [avis] quae bourn mugitus imitetur, 

in Arelatensi agro taurus appellata, alioqui parva.' 

thunder . . . a lyttle stone : cf. ' the thunderstone,' Jul. Caes. i. 3. 49, 

Cymb. iv. 2. 271 ; and vol. ii. p. 106, 1. 10 ' he that hath escaped lightning 

hath beene spoyled with thunder.' 

32. to looke it: i. e. look for it. Fletcher, Wit without Money, iv. 5 

' I come To look a young man I call brother.' 

P. 105, 2. good cheape : Fr. bon marche.. 

16. no pennye good siluer, &c. : silver pennies coined 1561, -2,-4, -9, 

1572, -3, -4, -5, -7 (Hawkins). Cf. vol. ii. p. 94,1. 4.

334 NOTES 

19. geason: rare. Stubbes, Anat. of Abuses (1583), ii. 5 'Rare 

birds vpon the earth, and as geason as blacke swans.' 

21. if one bee harde in concerning, &c.: hence, or from the women's 

talk of men, pp. 249, 253, Shakespeare borrowed Beatrice ' spelling men 

backward,' Much Ado, iii. 1. 60-70. 

26. Quae supra nos nihil ad nos: ascribed to Socrates in Taverner's 

Selection from Erasmus' Adages (1552), fol.xx. 

29. Sympathia : common liability to. The word was still new. 

30. but a pay re of sheeres, &c.: i. e. cut out of the same piece, of 

a piece. Meas, for Meas. i. 2. 29, and Basse (p. 61, ed. Bond) 'For 

certainely went but the sheares betwixt.' 

81. layeth cushions vnder the elbowe: of flattery or fair speech. 

Mart. Marprel. Epistle, 1588, p. 32, ed. Arber 'you sow pillowes vnder 

Haruies elbowes . .. because you would borow an 100 pound of him.' 

So Camp. iv. 3. 31 ' lay a pillowe vnder his head.' 

33. feate: cf. Cymb. v. 5. 88 ' A Page ... so feate.' 

P. 196, 1. the Cammocke: crooked staff or crook. Again, vol. ii. pp. 23. 

1. 21,1691.15; Sapho, ii. 4.108 ; Endim. iii. 1. 36 ' Timely crookes that tree 

that wil be a camock,' a proverb given among Heywood's (Reprint, p. 159). 

3. the Camomill . . . trodden . . . spreadeth : parodied by FalstafT 

I Henry IV, ii. 4. 443 : see Introd. Essay, pp. 133, 150, notes. But Lyly is 

pilfering from Pettie's Pallace, f. 11 v. ' as the hearbe Camamile, the more 

it is troden downe, the more it spreadeth abroade,' &c. 

12. occupyed: used, as above, 1. 3, and vol. ii. p. 32,1. 2 ' The brasse 

y t they occupy is brought in from beyond sea.' 

24. stande so on their pantuffles: of pride, self-reliance. P. 255 

' Stande thou on thy pantuffles, and shee will vayle bonnet.' Landmann 

quotes Cotgrave ' Se tenir sur le haut bout, to stand upon his pantofles, 

or on high tearmes.' ' Pantables' made ' higher with corke,' Endim. 

ii. 2. 32. 

P. 197, 3-6. I haue red . . . that a friend, &c.: i. e. in Cicero, De 

Amic. xx-xxii, where occurs ' Est enim is quidem tamquam alter idem.' 

18. eate a bushell of salt, &c.: i. e.isee a good deal of him first. Cic. 

De Amic. xix ' verumque illud est quod dicitur, multos modios salis simui 

edendos esse, ut amicitiae munus expletum sit.' Again, p. 247,1. 9, and 

Pettie's Pallace, f. 67r. 'The philosophers wyl vs to eate a bushel of 

Salt with a man, before we enter into strict familiaritie with him.' 

25. pheere: fellow. ' Pheare,' p. 230, J. 23, of Lucilla's mate. 

32. dissolued vpon a light occasion, &c.: from Pettie, f. 1 r. ' The 

friendshyp amongest men is grounded vpon no law, and dissolued vpon 

euery lyght occasion.' 

P. 198, 23. Damon to his Pythias . . . Lcelius: four of these five 

instances occur together in Hyg. Fab. 257, and the fifth (Titus and 

Gysippus) appears in a-sentence of Pettie's Pallace, the exact form of


which is here borrowed—' assure your selfe that neuer Pithias to his 

Damon, Pylades to his Orestes, nor Gisippus to his Titus was more true, 

then I wyl be to you,' f. 40 r. Again, in Lyly's Part II, vol. ii, p. 102,1. 37 

' Titus must lust after Sempronia, Gisippus must leaue her.' The Revels 

Accounts record ' The Historye of Titus and Gisippus showen at Whiteball 

on Shroue-tuysdaie at night [1576-7], enacted by the Children of 

Fawles' (Extracts, p. 114); and the play is probably the origin of these 

allusions, the plot taken perhaps from some Italian tale of Tito and 

(Giuseppe, for I cannot find that Gysippus is classical. * 

34. curiositie: nice ceremony. 

P. 199, 21. a towne borne childe: in M. Bomb. iv. 2. 223 the wags are 

' towne borne children.' 

22. continuance. The play with ' countenaunce' is repeated, vol. ii. 

p. 4, 1. 36. 

34. wanne . . . worne :• Much Ado, v. 1. 82 ' Win me and wear me ' 

(Landmann). 

36. banes : banns, as M. Bomb. v. 3. 269. 

P. 200, 26.- bringe my shadowe: Plut. Quaest. Conv. vii. 6 uses ovcia 

for a guest brought unbidden. 

P. 201, 15. He that worst . . . candell: proverb quoted Pettie's 

Bat/ace, f. 65 r. 

17. your lyste: your pleasure, will; so vol. ii. pp. 44, 1. 3, 103,1. 12 

and Oth. ii. 1. 105 ' when I have list to sleep.' 

29. It hath bene a question often disputed, &c.: for the form and 

substance cf. Pettie's Ball. f. 37 ' It is a doubt often debated, but yet 

not decided, whether ioue discendeth,' &c. 

P. 202,1-2. The foule Toade, &c.: this famous mediaeval superstition, 

to which Shakespeare's line (A. Y. L. I. i. 2. 12) has given universal 

notoriety, is not found in Pliny, though he speaks of' batrachites,' a stone 

resembling a frog in colour, and of ' cinaediae' (xxxvii. 56), a kind found 

in the brain of the fish ' cinaedus.' Whitney says that ' crapodinus' and 

' bufonites' appear in mediaeval Latin, and ' crapaudine' in French of 

the fourteenth century; while the stone in the toad's head is spoken of as 

' borax' by Albertus Magnus and others—the ' botrax' of Barthol. Angl. 

xviii. c. 17, who borrows the name from Isidore of Seville (Gk. fiorpaxos 

or fttiTpaxos), 12 Orig. 4. 35. Steevens' note on Shakespeare's line quotes 

allusion to it in A Green Forest or a Natural History, by John Maplett, 

1567, and the following from Edward Fenton's Secrete Wonders of 

Nature, 4 0 , B. L. 1569 ' That there is founde in the heades of old and 

great toades a stone which they call Borax or Stelon; it is most commonly 

founde in the head of a hee toad, of power to repulse poysons, and that it 

is a most soveraigne medicine for the stone.' 

8. in paynted pottes . . . poyson : so below ' sower poyson in a siluer 

potte,' and p. 222,1. 15. Scoffed at in Harvey's Advt. to Bapp-Hatchett

336 NOTES 

{Arckaica, ii. 139)' his gem-mint is not always current; and, as busy men, 

so painted boxes and gallipots must have a vacation.' It is from Pettie, 

however (fol. 71 v.) 'as in fayre painted pots poyson is oft put, and in 

goodly sumptuous Sepulchres rotten bones are rife.' Lyly has the sepulchres 

below, and again Camp, ii. 2. 56. 

9. greenest grasse . . .greatest Serpent; Pettie, f. 52 v. ' vnder most 

greene grasse, lye most great Snakes, and vnder entising baytes, intanglyng 

hookes,' which means no more than that snakes are found in grass. There 

is no authority for Lyly's perversion. He has the ' hookes' just below. 

11-2. Cypresse . .. no fruite; Plin. xvi. 60 'fructu supervacua.' Cf. 

Loves Met. i. 2. 11. 

19-20. a sweete Panther with a deuouring paunch: Plin. viii. 23 

' Ferunt odore earum mire sollicitari quadrupedes cunctas': but Lyly 

lifted it from Pettie's Pallace, fol. 34 r. 'the Panther, who with his gay 

colours and sweete smell, allureth other beaetes vnto him, and being 

within his reache, he rauenously deuoureth them.' Dr. Rich. Morris in 

An Old English Miscellany (Pref. p. viii, 1872) asked—'Without reference 

to a Bestiary, what meaning has the following passage in Lyly, where he 

compares flatterers to " Panthers which haue a sweete smell, but a deuouringe 

minde" [p. 282] ?' The panther with its alluring smell is supposed 

to have furnished one of the Christian emblems in the early Physiologus 

of the fourth or fifth century; but the lines in Dr. Morris' Bestiary present 

no close resemblance of diction ; they interpret the panther's sweet breath 

of Christ's love, and not of flatterers ; and the MS. was not printed before 

1837. 

22. make such course accompt of theyr passionate louers: 'treat their 

passion so much as a matter of course,' and so ' of no importance'; cf. 

pp. 235, 1. 33, 254,1. 11 'the countenaunce she sheweth to thee of course, 

the loue she beareth to others of zeale,' and Euph. and his Eng. p. 141, 

1. 3 'Thou thinkest all I write, of course, and makest all I speake, of 

small accompt.' Cf. p. 261, 1. 6 'a course which we ought to make 

a course accompte off.' Landmann explains it as = ' coarse.' 

24. straight laced, and. . . high in. the insteppe: the former term of 

manners, here, rather than morals. The latter phrase occurs for pride, 

Euph. and his Eng. p. 179,1. 5, and Endim. ii. 2. 34: both together in 

Hey wood's Proverbes, 1546 (p. 66 of Sharman's Reprint). Cf. also Midas, 

"i. 3. 33. 

27. traines: lures. 

P. 203, 6. blacke crowes foote: this and ' the blacke Oxe,' &c, are 

repeated as signs of old age in Sapho and Phao, iv. 2. 20, and Loves 

Met. iv. 1. ad fin. 

7. blacke Oxe treade on their foote: proverb for misfortune or decay 

(Nares). It occurs in Martin Marprelate's Epitome, p. 10 ' the blacke 

Oxe hath troden on his foote, he hath had some trial by woful experience,


what small credite ... there is... in disputing with these fellows.' And 

Hey wood's Proverbes (reprint, p. 28). 

23. ouerthwartnesse: lit. lying athwart,' then 'contrariness.' Cf. 

Cent. Dict. s. v. Cf. ouerthwarts in Camp. iii. 2. 38. 

30. affection will shadow it ; i.e. partiality will cloud it, and make 

her pronounce women the less easily allured. Lucilla ' takes him napping 

' by asserting the contrary, so that he is compelled to argue for their 

steadfastness, quite against his previous discourse. It is his ready wit in 

meeting this demand that so enchains Lucilla, pp. 205, 1. 11, 206, 1. 26. 

F. 204, 17. stone of Sicilia . .. the more it is beaten, &c.: again Saph. 

&c. ii. 4. 13 'our Sycilyan stone,' &c.; carelessly from Pettie's Pallace, 

fol. 84 v. 'lyke the stone of Scilitia, which the more it is beaten, the 

harder it is.' The stones of Cilicia are mentioned Pliny, xxxvi. 47 as good 

whetstones. 

30. ciuilitie: self-contrpl. 

35. alteration: ' distemper.' Again vol. ii. p. 223,1.15. Cf.' altereth,' 

vol. ii. p. 54, 1. 24. See Murray s. v. 

P. 205, 4. frie in the flames of loue: Endim. v. 3. 124 of Tellus 'fryed 

my selfe most in myne affections.' 

6. entred into these termes and contrarieties : from Pettie; see Introd. 

Essay, p. 142. 

13.fyled: polished. Cf. 'the fine and filed phrases of Cicero,' 

p. 287,1. 18. 

17. A starter: one who shrinks from his purpose, a runaway. 

Whitney quotes Hey wood, If you know not me, ' You need not bolt and 

lock so fast; | She is no starter.' Again, p. 222,1. 10 of Jason. 

31. Eagles wynge .. . wast the fether, &c.: Landmann, 'waste' == 

' out-tire'; but cf. Pliny, x. 4 ' Aquilarum pennae mixtas reliquarum alitum 

pennas devorant,' a reference repeated Gallathea, iii. 4. 45. 

P. 206,11. kynde spanyelli well-bred spaniel, true to his kind. So 

vnkynde, p. 206, 1. 31 'unnatural.' Again, p. 249, 1. 7 of the spaniel's 

fawning; and Euph. andhisEng. p. 130,1. 29' the vnkinde hounde ... or 

the bastarde Spanyell.' 

21. Emeraulde ... his wonderfull propertie•: Pliny, xxxvii. 16, assigns 

it the third place among stones, chiefly for its colour at once so pleasing 

and restful to the eye. The diamond, and pearl (Indian or Arabian), 

occupy the first and second places. The sapphire figures long afterwards, 

in c. 39. 

33. wonne with a Nut... lost with an Apple; i.e. lightly lost, as 

won. In Hey wood's Proverbes (reprint, p. 41). 

P. 207, 11. touch", touchstone, a name given to a hard black granite, 

used as a test for gold. (Nares.) Again, p. 219,1. 15, vol. ii. p. 122 1. 5. 

15. supersticiously: scrupulously, as ' supersticious not to desire it,' 

p. 210,1. 15. 

BOND I Z

338 NOTES 

P. 208, 2. cookemate: partner, companion. Cf. ' not disdayning their 

cockmates' of children, pp. 278,1. 22, 280,1. 1. See Murray s.v. Perhaps 

the prefix is connected with ' cocker,' of children brought up together. 

9-10. Sea Crabbe . . . agaynst the streame: cf. Camp. iii. 5. 35 ; 

perhaps remembering Pliny, ix. 51' (cancri) os Ponti evincere non 

valent,'—the current being too strong, they make their way by the 

shore. 

20. The filthy Sow . .. eateth the Sea Crabbe, &c.: four of these 

instances of animals seeking cures are adapted from Pliny, viii. 41: (1) 

' Hedera apri in morbis sibi medentur, et cancros vescendo, maxime mari 

eiectos. (2) Testudo cunilae [a species of origanum] pastu vires contra 

serpentes refovet. (3) Ursi, cum mandragorae mala gustavere, formicas 

lambunt. (4) Dictamnum herbam extrahendis sagittis cervi (usui) monstravere, 

percussi eo telo, pastuque eius herbae eiecto.' And for the fifth, 

the dog, Bartholomaeus Anglicus, xviii. 25, quotes Pliny, bk. viii, as his 

authority for the statement ' that an hounde that hath filled him of euyl 

meate eateth an herbe, & by perbrakyng & casting he purgeth him,' 

while inxvii. 76 this herb is said to be ' gramen '; but Pliny's eighth book 

does not contain this. 

29. more bitter then the daw of a Bitter', fact and etymology are 

invented. 'Bytter' for bittern occurs Endim. iii. 3. 56. 

30. the Apple in Persia, &c.: unobserved by Pliny, who deals with 

the Persian apple, xv. 11. 

P. 209, 3. casieth water on the fire, &c.: Pettie's Pallace, fol. 41 v. 

' as the Smyth his forge by casting on colde water it burnetii more fiercely.' 

5. ouerlashinge: excessive; metaphor from a swollen stream washing 

over its banks. Again, pp. 246, 1. 9, 309, 1. 20. The verb is used by 

Bp. Hall as = exaggerate. 

33. shadowe . . . shadow . . .: the first for close friend' (cf. p. 200, 

1. 26, note), the second for ' cover' or ' pretext.' 

P. 210, 5. the case is lyght, &c.: i. e. there is little at stake, if the matter 

can admit cool reasoning. 

7. caule: cap, net, headdress. 

Giges . . . Candaules: sixth tale of tome i of Painter's Pallace of 

Pleasure (1566), founded on Herodotus, i. 7-13. 

12. pleasaunt bayte .. . fleetest fish : as before, p. 185,1. 35. 

25. wily Mouse... Cats earei given in Heywood's Proverbes (1546), 

p. 125 of the reprint. 

28. stone... mollyfied onely with bloud: Pliny, xx. 1 ' adamantem... 

infragilem omni cetera vi et invictum, sanguine hircino rumpente.' Again, 

P. 305, 1. 17, vol. ii. pp. 87,1. 3, 224,1. 33. 

29. riuer in Caria, &c.: contrast p. 289, 1. 14 'the stone that 

groweth in the riuer of Caria, the whiche the more it is cutte, the more it 

encreaseth'; no authority for either fable.


31-2. sirrop of. . , Ceder... taketh away sight': again, p. 233,1. 21—a 

misreport of Pliny, xxiv. 11, where it is said to be 'magni ad lumina 

usus, ni capiti dolorem inferret'; while Bartholomaeus Anglicus, xvii. 23, 

says on the authority of Dioscorides that the gum of the cedar ' wipeth 

and clenseth awaye dymnesse of the even.' 

P. 211, 7. defused determination: fluent and eloquent close. 

9. Oyle out of.. . Ieate: perhaps founded on a hasty reading of Plin. 

xxxvi. 34 ' Cum uritur [gagates], odorem sulfureum reddit. Mirumque 

accenditur aqua, oleo restinguitur.' 

24. Philautus entered the chamber: so in Pettie's Pallace, fol. 39 v.the 

friend of Icilius comes to inquire about his grief. 

P. 212, 11. tainted: tented, kept open for the use of emollients ; a tent 

being (i)a probe: (2) a piece of lint, horsehair, sponge, &c. Cf. vol. ii. 

p. 88, 1. 20 ' launcing the wound thou shouldest taint.' 

12. take hart at grasse: again Euph. and his Eng. p. 54,1.31, in same 

form and sense of plucking up the spirits—one among many forms (e.g. 

'a grasse,' ( of grease') assumed by a phrase which now survives only as 

' heart of grace.' See Murray s. v. 

16. cullisses: clear strong broths. 

24. the harp y e fleet Dolphin : Pliny, xi. 50 ' (delphini) cantu mulcentur, 

et capiuntur attoniti sono.' So below, p. 223 ' the Dolphin by the sound 

of Musicke is brought to y e shore.' Here, however, the fable of Arion is 

in Lyly's mind. 

29. Goat.. .fatter... lessefertil: Pliny, viii. 76 ' Caprae pinguitudine 

steriliscunt' 

37. curiosity: affectation. 

P. 213, 9. attached of ; taken prisoner by. 

12. quotididfit: properly a fever of daily recurrence. ' The quotidian 

of love' (As You Like It, iii. 2. 383) for ' extreme.' 

36. recured: cured; often both as verb and subst., e. g. Endim. 

vol. iii. pp. 33 1. 92, 40 1. 26, 47 1. 21 

P. 214, 2. cure: patient (Landmann). 

7. cloase: sympathetic response,; properly of music, where discords 

are resolved at the end. Cf. Henry V, i. 2. 182 ' congreeing in a full and 

natural close Like music '; and for a similar verb, Hamlet', ii. 1.45 ' closes 

with you in this consequence.' 

15. comparisons . .. odious: Bartlett quotes the saying from Fortescue's 

De Laudibus Legum Angliae, c. 19. (circa 1463). 

25. any of them both: either of them. Cf. p. 233, 1. 5 ' why go I 

about to excuse any of them, seeing I haue iuste cause to accuse them 

both ?'; Moth. Bomb. v. 3. 109 ' who will tender marriage to anie of 

them ?' of Accius and Silena ; Woman in Moone, v. 1. 27 ' none of both.' 

33. swallow ...a gudgen: i.e. be caught, the gudgeon being used for 

bait (Landmann). Again, p. 240,1. 1. 

z 2

340 

NOTES 

P. 215, 1. Salncts: term frequently applied to a mistress, e. g. 

p. 217,1. 21. 

4. Scorpion that stung thee shall heale thee: Pliny, xxiv. 29' Prodest 

... scorpio ipse suae plagae impositus, aut assus in cibo sumtus, aut potus 

in meri cyathis duobus.' Cf. below, p. 247,1. 29 ' the Scorpion though he 

sting, yethee stints y e paine,' and vol. ii. pp. 124 1. 18, 172, 1. 9. 

9. painted sheth with the leaden dagger: again as a proverb for 

hollowness, p. 255,1. 30 ; Midas, i. 2. 41, perhaps derived from the stage. 

Landmann compares 1 Henry IV, ii. 4. 418 ' Thy state is taken for a 

joined stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger.' 

32. to pinch courtesie: stand on ceremony. Halliwell quotes 

' I pynche courtaysye as one doth that is nyce of condyscions, jefays le 

nyce,' Palsgrave [657 : 1530]. Like' strain courtesy,' it may be used either 

of excess or defect. 

P. 216, 29. the onely imagination: the mere imagination. Cf. Gall, 

v. 1. 61 'made onely my slumber thoughts,' and Woman in Moone, 

ii. I. 125. 

P. 217,1. 4. Steele glasse: mirror. Gascoigne's poem, The Steel Glas, 

was printed in 1576. 

23. rounding: to roun, rown or round, is to whisper. Cant. Tales, 

5823: 'rounded' in King John, ii. 566. 

P. 218, 5. sounded-, swooned. So Woman in Moone, i. 1. 217 'She 

weeping sounds.' 

18. water of free will, &c.: i.e. neither change my desire, nor 

restrain it. See Introd. Essay, p. 124. 

22. poyson disperseth it selfe into euerye vaine: cf. Rom, & Jul. 

v. 1. 60' A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear As will disperse itself 

through all the veins.' Again Euph. and his Eng. p. 73,1. 22. 

31. sterue: ME. steruen, starve: in its original sense of 'die' by 

cold or famine. 

32. Bauin: faggot. 

35. mawe: stomach. P. 313,1. 28 'sowre in the mouth and sharpe 

in the mawe.' t 

P. 219, 4. worme,., eateth not the Ceder: Barth. Angl. xvii. 23 says of 

the cedar that ' the smell of it driueth awaye serpentes and all maner of 

venemous wormes,' and that 'bokes which ben vernished with that gume| 

be not fret with wormes.' Pliny, xxiv. 11, has merely the general statement 

that cedar-juice destroys living things, and preserves dead things 

from corruption. 

5. stone Cylindrus, &c.: entirely fictitious. 

6. sleeke stone = smoothing stone ; Landmann compares Euph, and 

his Eng. p. 9, 1. 19 'She that wanteth a sleeke-stone to smooth her 

linnen, will take a pibble.' CL also p. 254,1. 33 ' the sleeking of theire 

faces.'


8. Polypus x in Taverner's selection from Erasmus, Adagia, f. 49 V. 

' this fysshe [Polypus]... as Autours write, do oftentimes chafige colours.' 

Cf. Pliny, ix. 46 ' Colorem mutat ad similitudinem loci.' Again, Loves Met, 

iii. 1. ad med. 

P. 220, 4. thus shee replyed: with Lucilla's coquetry and holding-off 

compare the reply of Virginia in Pettie, fol. 41 r., and still more that of 

Agrippina to Germanicus in the Third Tale. 

26. Foxe preacheth . . . Geese perishe; cf. vol. ii. p. 99, 1. 12 'it is a 

blinde Goose that commeth to the Foxes sermon,' where see note. 

27. Crocodile ... teares: the fable seems due to Maundeville (c. 1400), 

xxviii. 288 ' In that contre . . . ben gret plentee of Cokadrilles .. . Theise 

Serpentes slen men, and thei eten hem wepynge.' Sir J. Hawkins 

(Hakluyt, iii. 512) represents the tears as intended to attract the victim 

(1600) (Murray). 

31. shake handes with: say farewell to, part with. Whitney quotes 

Quarks' Emblems, iii. 'Shake hands with earth,' &c. 

32. leade Apes in hell: again, p. 230,1. 26, and Taming of Shrew, ii. 

1. 34; Much Ado, ii. 1. 42-8. See Murray s. v. 

P 221, 24. Hares in Athon . .. Bees in Hybla: so Endim. iii. 4. 145 

' common as Hares in Atho, Bees in Hybla,' &c. 

33. trauayle: i.e. travel, the same word. 

34. kinges ... longarmes, &c.: 2 Henry VI, iv. 7. 86 ' Great men have 

reaching hands.' Midas, iv. 2. 5. ' Longae regum manus' is given on 

fol. 4 of Richard Taverner's selection from the Adagia of Erasmus (1539). 

It is from Helen's epistle to Paris, Ov. Her, xvii. 166 'An nescis longas 

regibus esse manus ?' 

P. 222, 1. hew: hue. 

6. Phillis . . . Demophoon, &c.: in Pettie's Pallace, fol. 20 r. these 

four instances of infidelity are found together, with the addition of Nero's 

cruelty to his mother Agrippina. Not found together in Hyginus. 

17. expire thy date: Rom. & JuL i. 4. 109 ' some consequence. . . 

shall... expire the tearme of a despised life.' 

18. wight; creature, may be fern, and neut., as well as masc.; cf. 

p. 258,1. 9 'y e Jewde wight [hath] the name of a woman as wel as the 

honest Matrone.' 

19. Scorpion .. .feede on the earth: if pressed, Lyly would quote Plin. 

x. 93 ' scorpiones terra vivunt' 

20. Quaile and Roebucke, befatte with poyson: Pliny, x. 92 ' Venenis 

capreae et coturnices pinguescunt.' 

21. stone Continens: Lyly's addition to the mineral world. 

25. seedes of Rockatte: Pliny, x. 83 ' eruca fit aviditas coitus.' Also 

Plutarch's Moralls (Holland), f. 505 ' Rogket, and such hot herbs, for to 

stir up the lust of the flesh.' 

26. leafe Cresse: Barth. Angl. xvii. 15 'Agnus castus is an herbe

342 

NOTES 

hotte and drye, and hath vertue to kepe men & women chaste | as Plinius 

sayth.' Pliny, xx. 50, notes ' nasturtium' as an antaphrodisiac. 

28. noisome: the herb Araxa and the stone in Mount Tmolus seem 

alike unknown to Pliny. 

31. cast beyonde the Moone: of wild fancies or schemes. M. Bomb. 

ii. 2. 6. 

P. 223, 14. Eagle ... Fly : altered from ' Aquila non captat mus,cas,' 

Erasmus 1 Adagia (Contemptus et Vilitatis), ed. Basileae 1533, p. 678. 

18. hard winter... Wolfe, &c.: Pettie's Pallace, f. 72 r.' Wolues neuer 

pray vpon Wolues.' 

19. Bull... tyedtoy 6 Figgetree: Barth. Angl. xvii. 61' And telleth that 

fulle cruelle bulles become mylde if they be tyed to a figtree,' as from 

Pliny through Isidore: I find only Plut. Quaest. Conv. ii. 7 

20. Deare .. .sweete apple: the red deer plunder by night the orchards 

round Exmoor. 

21. Dolphin .. • Musicke, &c.: cf. p. 212,1. 24, note. 

34. Lysander... daughters.. .gorgeous apparell: Plut. Reg. et Imp. 

Apophtheg. Lys. 1 

xxx 

37. inAegypt... woetnen.. .go barefoote: Plut. Conjugalia Praecepta, 

P. 224, 4. Leere and Caddys: Halliwell gives leere as Kentish for tape: 

while caddys was cotton wool or worsted yarn used for stuffing—and vol. 

ii. p. 9,1. 21 by country dames for girding the waist. 

4-5. for the Penne, the Needle, &c.: in Gall. iii. 4. 48 Diana reproaches 

her nymphs with vsing the penne for Sonets, not the needle 

for Samplers': cf. pp. 320,1. 1, 321 1.38 and vol. ii. p. 201, 11. 28-9. 

31. chaunge your coppie: again, p. 236, 1. 18 of change of mind or 

conduct. See Murray s. v. 

P. 225, 9, If I should offende .. . beastly: Euphues' reply, though the 

text does not note it. 

12. successe: sequel. Cf. Wint. Tale, i. 2. 394 our parents' noble 

names | In whose success we are gentle.' Painter's Pallace of Pleasure, 

torn. i. 49 (vol. ii. p. 27, ed. Jacobs) ' the poore desolate women, fearing 

least their case would sorte to som pitiful successe.' Again, End. iii. 4.182. 

15. contentation: used for 'satisfaction' (1494), Fabyan's Chronicle, 

vii. 235, 271. 

21. raine ... Marble: Lucret. i. 313 ' Stillicidi casus lapidem cavat.' 

31.1 force not: I care not for. Cf. vol. ii. pp. 48,1. 14, 94,1. 24. See 

Murray s.v. 

35. mannors ... manners: again, pp. 267,11. 32-3, 317,1. 12. 

P. 226, 20. stale: pretext, i.e. to Philautus, p. 212.


P. 227, 16. to bride it: used of Bianca in Taming, iii. 2. 253. 

17-24. Mineonely care... comely personage: see Introd. Essay, p. 166, 

for Shakespeare's borrowings here. 

P. 228,15. Portingale : Portuguese. 

18. threateneth : foretells, anticipates. 

25. lette gather up the light strawe: nothing under 'gagates,' Plin. 

xxxvi. 34 ; prob. transferred from amber, xxxvii. 11 (vol. ii. p. 138.1. 9, note). 

29. assuringe: affiancing, betrothing, pre-contract, a special ceremony 

in Elizabethan days. Cf. vol. ii. p. 218,1.34 ' wordes of assurance betweene 

Surius and Camilla,' and note. 

P. 229, 33. wishinge rather to stande. . . any other: probably of 

Philautus, who prefers to take his chance of moving Lucilla rather than 

choose or be chosen by another ; but perhaps of Lucilla, preferring to risk 

being unwed rather than marry where she does not choose. 

P. 230, 13. as Homere reporteth : this must be derived from the following 

in The Diall—' Certen Letters,' ch. vi.—for which I know of no 

Homeric authority: 'Homere sayth, it was the custome of ladyes of 

Grece to count the yeres of their life, not from the time of their birth, but 

from the time of their mariage. . . . Affirming after they had a house to 

gouerne and to commaund that day she beginneth to Hue. The Melon 

after it is ripe, and abydeth still in the gardeine, cannot escape, but eyther 

it must be gathered, or els it rotteth,' &c. Lyly explains the feeling, by 

the sense of the duty of bearing children. Capulet borrows from this 

passage his epithet ' carrion ' for Juliet (iii. 5. 157). 

27. dysease: trouble, the general negative of ' ease,' as on p. 236,1.16. 

Compare the reading 'diseased' of E 2 rest, p. 245, 1. 12; and Midas, 

iii. 2. 139 'my teeth disease me.' 

33. pinched Philautus on the parsons side: i.e. disappointed him of 

his wedding. I know no other instance. 

P. 231, 3. make it as straunge: here seems to mean ' hold it [i.e. love] 

as much at arm's length,' though the phrase was commonly used for being 

shocked or surprised. 

20. Mir ha... Biblis... Phcedra: the two latter and their crimes are 

mentioned near together, Hyg. Fad. 243; Myrrha in Fab. 164. Biblis 

and Myrrha occur, however, close together in Ov. Ars Amat. i. 283-5, 

and Phaedra in 1. 511. 

P. 232, 4. flange: used as past tense of fling in Heywood's Spider and 

Flie (1556), iv. 5 'Full furiouslie he flang | Towards the flie.' 

13. Synon: A en. ii. 79. 

19. fish Scolopidus, &c.: so Endim. ii. 1.19 'thy fish, Cynthia, in the 

rloode Araris, which at thy waxing is as white as the driuen snowe, and 

at thy wayning as blacke as deepest darknes.' It is taken from the Pseudoplutarchea, 

De Fluviis, vi. Arar (i. e. Sadne): ' Nascitur in ipso magnus 

piscis ab indigenis Clupaea (Gk. Kkovnata) vocatus (in cod. Scolopidos),

344 

NOTES 

qui secundum aucta lunae albus est, secundum damna vero omnino niger: 

et quum in extremam crevit magnitudinem a propriis spinis confoditur' 

(Wyttenbach). Aelian, De Nat. Animal, xv. 4 says the fish ' luna,' of dark 

colour, changes its size with the moon. Mr. P. A. Daniel points out to me 

that in A Merrie Knack to Know a Knave (Hazlitt's Dodsley, vi. p. 558) 

occurs ' The fish palerna, being perfect white in the calme, Yet turneth 

black with every storm.' 

30. IIande Scyrum: so vol. ii. p. 14, 1. 34. Scyros in the Aegean is 

meant, though I know of no foundation for the story. 

P. 233,5. any of them: either of them. P. 2141.25 note 'any of them both.' 

20. Cedar... siroppe . . . sight', cf. p. 210, 11. 31-2, note. 

P. 234, 14. Glazeworme: or Glasse-worme (E rest), i.e. glow-worm. 

30. trauails: travels, as is clear from 'reduced,' i.e. brought back ; 

originally the same word. 

P. 235, 3. meaten: meted, measured. Cf. Euphues 'melten,' p. 310, 

1. 24; 'loden,' vol. ii. p. 45, 1. 31. 

thought it no conscience to: made no conscience of. 

7. by my compasse: measurement, calculation. 

17. chew vppon: ruminate on; cf. 'Chewing the food of sweet and 

bitter fancy/ As You Like It, iv. 3. 102. 

20 Aiax . . . Vlysses .. . the armour: Ov. Met. xiii. 1 sqq. 

22. crake of: crack of, boast of. Again, vol. ii. p. 67,1. 8. 

26. Puttocke: kite. 

33. so is it of course: i.e. conventional, lacking in depth, as pp 202, 

1. 22, note, 254, 1. 11, vol. ii. p. 141,1. 3. 

P. 236, 1. first poynt, &c: 'The first poynt of hauking is hold fast,' 

Hey wood's Proverbes (1546), p. no, Sharman's reprint. 

3. Deskant: Harmony, variety gained by adding parts; i. e. you 

shouldn't have introduced me to Lucilla; see Skeat s.v. 

10. Iupiter transforme himselfe, &c.: these various transformations 

of Jupiter are to be found in Hyginus, Fab. 29, 63, 77, 145 (lo), lo being 

put, by a confusion, for Europa (Fab. 178). 

13. Neptune, &c. 1 the Heyfer I cannot find ; Ramme refers to his 

amour with Theophane (Hyg. Fab. 188); Floude may refer to Hesione 

(Fab. 89), or Andromeda, or his contest with Athene (Fab. 164)—but Lyly 

sometimes writes with the same fluent carelessness of mythology as of 

natural history. 

15. Apollo, &c.: Apollodorus, iii. 10. § 4 (fols. 276-7 of the ed. of 

Hyginus, 1578) relates how Apollo served Admetus as shepherd for a year 

in penalty to Jove for slaying the Cyclopes. 

18. coppie: mind or conduct: cf. p. 224, 1. 31. 

25. clownes Garlike: Landmann quotes Mids.N. Dream,iv. 2.43 'And, 

most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath.' 

26. Treacle: a medicinal compound, or else a healing plant: the


modern use is later (Whitney). Cf. Basse's Eclogues, vi ' Nor wholesome 

treacle cleanse his poison'd blood.' 

26. farrefette, &c.: i.e. fetched. Heywood's Proverbes (1546), p. 67, 

reprint, ' deare bought and far fet | Are dainties for Ladies.' 

P. 237, 9. Euphues was also cast off, &c.: for this summary announcement 

see Introd. Essay, p. 141. 

12. in hir muses', the Cent. Dict, quotes Rom. of Partenay (E.E.T.S. 

1. 5511) 'Thys king in muses ther was full strongly.' 

21. glyeke: gleek or glick = taunt. 

22. miste the cushion: you are mistaken. In Hey wood's Proverbes, 

p. 165, Sharman supposes it taken from archery: but Dr. Brinsley 

Nicholson (Glossary to Reginald Scott's Discouerie of Witchcraft) refers 

it rather to some variant of stool-ball or to the cushion-dance, or simply 

to one missing his seat and coming to the ground. 

26. nipped on the head: nipped is taunted, of. p. 200,1. 31. On the 

head, as the part one would most wish to defend. 

35. frumpe: taunting speech. 

P. 239, 8. it nothing toucheth me: makes no difference, is no consolation—constructed 

with what follows, not with what precedes. 

20. make: mate. 

22. Cornelia herein Naples... rude Miller: probably from one of the 

Italian novelists : not ancient. 

35. an Ele... holde of hir taile: Hey wood's Proverbes, 1546, p. 41, 

reprint, 'A woman | Is as sure to hold as an ele by the tayle.' 

P. 240, 1. swallow a Gudgen: see p. 214, 1. 33, note. 

14. openly taken in an yron net, &c.: the wording of this reference 

to Venus is reminiscent of Pettie's Pallace, fol. 34 v., where Infortunio, 

in similar case to Euphues, reproaches Venus for being taken with Mars 

' togeather starke naked in an iron netted.' 

22. Pasiphae: Hyg. Fab. 40, and Ovid, Ars Amat. i. 

23. Mir ha . . . incensed: i.e. enflamed. Hyg. Fab. 243. 

P. 241, 17. corasiues: corrosive in their action. Again p. 253,1. 23. 

23. tosse my bookes: i.e. turn them over. Landmann quotes Titus 

Andron. iv. 1. 41 'What book is that she tosseth so?' 

29. Axiomaes of Aristotle, &c. : Aristotle, Justinian, and Galen are 

taken as the great authorities on moral philosophy, law, and medicine just 

adverted to; but the impression produced (by the use of capitals and 

italics in all editions) that the titles of special works are here given is only 

justified in the case of Galen, whose commentary on the Aphorismi of 

Hippocrates was constantly reprinted about the beginning of the fifteenth 

century, e.g. Florence, 1494 fol., Venice, 1498, 1517, 1520, fol. The 

great body of law drawn up under Justinian's supervision was known as 

the Digest or Pandects. It is worth mention, however, that the Stationers' 

Register records, under date January 29, 1592, the entry of 'a booke

346 

NOTES 

intituled Axiomata Philosophica gathered out of Aristotle and other ye 

moste excellent Philosophers together with certen explications by Bede,' 

of which there may possibly have been an earlier edition, or some similar 

and earlier work. 

37. the thing y e better it is the greater is the abuse, &c.: compare 

Friar Laurence, Rom. & Jul. ii. 3. 20 (Introd, Essay, p. 167). 

P. 242, 11. dunge out of the Maple, &c.: I find no authority for this. 

22. still: distilling glass. 

P. 243, 24. Danaus... but one that disobeyed', viz. Hypermnestra, who 

spared the life of her husband Lynceus (Hyg. Fab. 170). 

P. 244, 1. blaze: blazing star, cynosure (Murray). 

17. cockney : spoiled child. 

cockescombe: fool, the comb and feathers of a cock being used for the 

Fool's cap (Landmann). 

P. 245, 16. stand to the maine chaunce: dicing phraseology, where 

' the maine' is opposed to ' the by' or 'bye.' Cf. Euph. and his Eng. 

p. 188,1. 6 ' haue an eye to the mayne, what soeuer thou art chaunced at the 

buy.' Lucilla hopes that even if she is disappointed of the bye, i.e. her 

father's approval, yet he will not deprive her of ' the maine' by forbidding 

the match altogether. 

35. abhominable: from false etymology ab homine [as Holofernes, 

L. L. L. v. 1. 25], the true being ab-ominor, to deprecate as of ill omen 

(Nares). 

P. 246, 9. ouerlashing: excessive, exaggerated. Again, pp. 209, 1. 5, 

309,1. 20. 

Z. A cooling Carde, &c.: in temper, though not in actual words, this 

address to Philautus, as well as the subsequent letter to him, is indebted 

to Guevara's Menosprecio de Corte, which was translated into English by 

Sir Francis Bryan, 1548, and reprinted 1575 under the title of A looking 

Glasse for the Court, with the further title (fol. 3) A dispraise of the life 

of the Courtier, and a commendacion of the life of the husbandman, &c. 

See also Introd. Essay, p. 155. Carde: in the sense of compass or 

guide, like the ''shipman's card,' i.e. compass. 

32. tourne my tippet: in Hey wood's Prov. and Epigr. 1562, fourteen 

epigrams are given on this proverb for changing sides, which was perhaps 

of clerical origin; but cf. the ' Whitehoods' in Ghent, in the time of 

Philip van Artevelde. 

33. Wiredrawer; i.e. 'precisian,' not, as Landmann, 'wirepuller.' 

Metaphor from the mechanical art of drawing out wire fine. 

P. 247, 2. hotte as a toast. . . colde as a clock: Hey wood gives the 

phrase as ' Hot as a toste.cold as kay,' i.e. key. If a physical sense be 

insisted on clock must stand, as sometimes, for 'bell'; but it is more like 

Lyly to oppose a moral sense,' free from passion as a machine/ to the 

physical sense of' hotte as a toast.'

A COOLING CARDE 347 

4. crye creeke (or creake): to confess oneself beaten. See Murray s.v. 

bee olde huddle and twange, ipse, hee: be embraced as her darling, 

and fiddle or sing,' I am the man.' So Touchstone to his rival William, 

' you are not ipse, for I am he' (A. Y, L, I, v. i. 46). 

5. weeting: wetting. ' Shrink in the wetting,' of a sudden, temporary, 

and reparable injury, like the cold douche of Lucilla's desertion. 

6. Steele to the backe: it escapes Landmann that physical strength is 

implied as well as fidelity. Cf. the Elder Loveless' sensitiveness on this 

subject in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady; his rivals are ' steelchin'd 

rascals,' v. 1. 18. 

9. eaten . .. bushell of salt wyth: see p. 197,1. 18, note. 

10. tenne quarters: eight bushells in one quarter. 

28. Achilles speare, &c.: alluding to the story (Cycli Frag.) of 

Telephus being healed by the spear of Achilles, which had wounded him; 

a cure, says Pliny, xxv. 19, xxxiv. 45, by some explained of the verdigris 

which he scraped off the spear into the wound with his sword, as 

represented in some pictures. Cf. Ov. Met. xii. 112 'opusque meae bis 

sensit Telephus hastae.' 

29. Scorpion though he sting, &c.: so above, p. 215,1. 4, note. 

30. hearb Nerius: Pliny, xvi. 33 ' (Rhododendron . . .) Alii nerion 

vocarunt . .. Iumentis caprisque et ovibus venenum est. Idem homini 

contra serpentium venena remedio.' 

34. Hare ,, . Hounde: Hey wood's Proverbes, Pt. I, ch. 10 (Bartlett). 

P. 248, 13-5. the first draught of wine.,, theseconde.,. thethirde, &c.: 

cf. Euph. andhisEng. p. 54,1. 24 ' the Uine beareth three grapes, the first 

altereth, the second troubleth, the third dulleth.' Lyly probably borrowed 

it from Edmund Tylnzy's Flower of Friendship, 1568, sig. Civ. 'Anacharsis 

the Philosopher sayde, that the Vine bare three kindes of grapes, the 

first of pleasure, the second of dronkennesse, and the thirde of sorrow.' 

29. fowle: ugly, as often. This paragraph closely imitated from one 

in North's Diall ad fin. ' Certen Letters,' c. vi. 

P. 249, 2. Mecocke: Nares explains as 'meek cock,' i.e. hen-pecked, 

tame-spirited; which has more probability than ' meek + dimin. -ock,' 

which the Cent, Diet, doubtfully suggests, quoting also Fletcher's Wild 

Goose Chase, v. 2 ' Fools and meacocks | To endure what you think fit to 

put upon 'em.' As this is one of the very few passages where the diction 

positively recalls The Diall of Princes, I illustrate it by a few lines from 

the latter (bk. ii. ch. 16, fol. m, ed. 1568)—' Oh vnto what perils doth he 

offer him selfe, whiche continually doth haunte the company of women. 

For as much as if he loue them not, they -despise him, and take him for 

a foole. If he doth loue them, they accompt him for light. If he forsake 

the they esteme him for no body. If he followe them he is accompted 

loste. If he scorne them, they doe not regarde him. If he doe not seme 

them, they despyse him. If he wyll haue them, they wyll not If he will

348 

NOTES 

not, they persecute him. If he doe aduaunce him selfe forth, they call 

hym importunate. If he flie, they saye he is a cowarde. If he speake, 

theye saye he is a bragger. If he holde his peace, they saye he is 

a dissarde. If he laughe, they saye he is a foole. If he laughe not, they 

say he is solempne. If he geueth them any thing, they say it is little 

worth: & he that geueth them nothing, he is a pinchpurse. Finally he 

that haunteth them, is by them sclaundered: and he that doth not 

frequent them, is esteamed lesse then a man.' 

7. kinde Spaniell: true-bred spaniel, as on p. 206,1. 11. Landmann 

quotes Mids. N. Dr. ii. 1. 203: 

' I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, 

The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.' 

8. foolish Eiesse, which will neuer away: Pettie's Pallace, fol. 82 

has 'knowe him to be a Niesse, which wyl neuer away,' perhaps for niece 

= relative, or connected, like ' nuisance,' with nuire, or perhaps error for 

' an Eiesse,' which baffles me. 

9. woe men deeme none valyaunt &c.: see note on ' if one bee harde in 

concerning,''p. 195,1. 21. 

15. pinglers: 'Probably a labouring horse, kept in the homestead. 

Pingle is defined by Coles, "Agellulus domui rusticae adiacens, ager 

conseptus "' (Nares, who quotes this passage). 

27-9. I haue reade . . . a Towne in Spay'ne vndermined with Connyes, 

&c.: all these instances (except that of the ' Mowles') are found together 

in chap. 20 of T. Fortescue's Foreste (1571), fol. 107 v. 'Marcus Varro 

reporteth, that there was a greate toune in Spaine, situate, or standing in 

a sandie soile, whiche was by Conies, in such sort vndermined, that in th' 

ende it suncke, & came to extreame ruine . . . The saied aucthours [i.e. 

M. Varro and'Elian'] again reporte, that there was also in Fraunce, 

a famous toune, whiche by the onely multitude of Todes, and Frogges 

there, was also by the inhabitauntes, lefte, and forsaken. The semblable 

chaunsed, as is euident, in Africa, by the onely malice of Locustes, and 

Grasshoppers.' Lyly's ' these silly Wormes ' just below compared with 

Fortescue's phrase at end of chap. 20 ' of many countries, by the onely 

force of little wormes, brought to be desolate and forsaken,' points to 

Fortescue as his authority; but so close a student of Pliny can hardly 

have missed the following, which supplies the missing moles, and was 

perhaps Fortescue's source—' M. Varro auctor est, a cuniculis suffossum 

in Hispania oppidum, a talpis in Thessalia: ab ranis civitatem in Gallia 

pulsam, ab locustis in Africa: ex Gyaro Cycladum insula incolas a muribus 

fugatos, in Italia Amyclas a serpentibus deletas' (viii. 43). 

P. 250, 8. Hiena, when she speaketh lyke a man, &c.: Pliny, viii. 44 

' Sed maxime sermonem humanum inter pastorum stabula assimulare, 

nomenque alicuius addiscere, quern evocatum foras laceret,' reproduced 

by Barth. Angl. xviii. 61 'And hirdes tell that amonge stables, he feyneth


speache of mankynde, and calleth some man by his own name, & renteth 

him whan he hath hym without.' 

11. Alexander ...the wife of Darius: this and the following instance 

of Cyrus and Panthea occur together near the end of Plutarch's De 

Curiositate. Cf. also Plut. Alexander, chap. 22. 

14-6. Cyrus... Panthea. .. Araspus: ' Cyrus and Panthea' [wife of 

Abradatas] forms the eleventh tale in tome i of Painter's Pallace of 

Pleasure, 1566. Xenophon is the source of the story, which is given also 

in Plut. De Curiositate, and Belleforest, iv. 265. 

20. Romulus... refrainefrom wine: so above, p. 186,1. 21 'abstaine 

with Romulus,' where see note. 

21. Agesilaus, &c.: Plut. Apophtheg. Laconica, Agesil. 76. 

22. Diogenes, &c.: taken merely as a general example of asceticism. 

23. touchelh pitche, &c.: the proverb is quoted 1 Henry IV, ii. 2.425, 

where Shakespeare is parodying Lyly: see p. 150, note 3. 

28. youthfull: youthly, the reading of G and later eds., occurs above, 

pp. 192,1. 22, 194,1. 7. 

37. these Abbaie lubbers, &c.: the context implies idleness and selfindulgence, 

and the phrase must be a cant term for holders of prebendal 

stalls, or other posts with light duties attached in the abbey. This is 

borne out by The Epitome, p. 6, where Martin Marprelate will have ' not 

so much as a Lorde B[ishop] ... archdeacon, abbie lubber, or any such 

loyterer, tollerated in our ministerie.' Mr. P. A. Daniel points out to me 

a parallel to what follows in M. Bomb. i. 1. 75 'thou shalt eate, thou shalt 

I ?' till thou'] sweate, play till thou sleep, and sleepe till thy bones ake'; 

and some resemblance in Slipper's ' bill' in Greene's fames IV, i. 2. p. 193 a 

(ed. Dyce). 

P. 251, 14. fattest grounde, &c. : proverb repeated 2 Henry IV, 

iv. 4. 54 ' Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds.' 

16. which Seneca reporteth, &c.: Plut. An sit Seni administranda 

Respub. c. xvi. 5 

But Plutarch is sometimes indebted to Seneca. 

24. atanynchei close behind,, 

P. 252, 5. blast: i. e. of wind, or ' blasted bud,' as p. 325,1. 13. 

18. straininge disease: figuratively, of a craving for freedom. 

19. iusts... turnayes: distinguished as the encounter of two knights, 

or of two parties, respectively. 

29. tree Siluacenda . ..Persian trees in Rhodes, &c.: Pliny, xvi. 58, 

says generally that trees do not bear except where they are indigenous. 

1 find no mention of any tree called 'Siluacenda.' Lyly substitutes 

i Persian' for Assyrian—see next note. Pharos is the island near 

Alexandria, on which Ptolemy I built the lighthouse. 

32. Amomus, and Nardus... Balsamum onely in Syria : Pliny, xvi. 59 

' Fastidit balsamum alibi nasci [cf. xii. 54 balsamum uni terrarum Iudaeae

350 

NOTES 

concessum]: nata Assyria malus alibi ferre... Non ferunt amomi nardique 

deliciae, ne in Arabia quidem ex India, et nave peregrinari.' 

33. in Rhodes no Eagle ...no Owle Hue in Crete: Pliny, x. 41 'quarum 

[noctuarum] genus in Creta insula non est: etiam si qua invecta sit 

emoritur. .. Rhodus aquilam non habet.' 

P. 253, 4. husband: husbandman. • 

13. water... thy plantes: weep. 

14. Pigges nye: properly ' pig's eye,' common as a term of endearment. 

Moth. Bomb. ii. 2. 24 ' his pigsnie is put vp.' 

mammering: hesitation, the idea being that of paralysed powers rather 

than stammering. AS. mamor, deep sleep, unconsciousness. Again, vol. 

ii. pp. 75,1. 25, 148,1. 22 ; and Oth. iii. 3. 70 ' stand so mammering on.' 

17. sleeuelesse excuse: bootless. Pappe, vol. iii. ' a sleeueiess conscience 

' (alluding to the sleeveless gown preferred by Puritans). Troilus 

& Cr. v. 4. 9 ' of a sleeveless errand,' cf. Skeat s. v. A simple interpretation 

would be ' half-made-up,' ' ill considered'; or ' helpless,' ' useless,' 

alluding to the difficulty of using the arms in any such covering cloak. 

23. a corasiue: i.e. corrosive, as on p. 241, 1. 17. 

25. pykes: rocks. Cf. p. 189,1. 7. 

P. 254,2. a longis: as we should say, 'a maypole'; again, vol. ii. p. 97,1.35. 

11. of course: conventionally, outwardly, as on pp. 202, note, 235,1.33. 

22-3. no sighte in deskante: not able to take a part, no knowledge of 

harmony as opposed to the plain-song of' chaunting.' Cf. p. 236,1. 3, note. 

26. gagge toothed: jag-toothed. 

33. sleeking: cf. 'sleeke stone,' p. 219,1. 6. 

34. slibber: 'dirty; cp. slabber, slobber, and slubber' (Landmann). 

37. rowles: a roll of hair. ' Antiae, the heare of a woman that 

is layed over hir forheade; gentilwomen dyd lately call them their rolles,' 

Elyot, ed. 1559 (Halliwell). 

P. 255, 6. fangles: trifles, toys. Wood's Athenae, ii. col. 456 ( A hatred 

to fangles, and the French fooleries of his time' (Nares). 

7. shadows: the same as a bone-grace, or border attached to a bonnet 

to shield the complexion from the sun. Cotgrave says in v. Cornette, 

' a fashion of shadow, or boonegrace, used in old time, and at this day by 

some old women' (Halliwell). ' Shadowes' and' spots' (=black patches) 

are mentioned Midas, i. 2. 80. 

leefekyes: or ' lyfkies,' bodices ; Mid.Dutch lijfken, dim. of lijf, body: 

been vrouwen Lijfken, a Woman's Bodies' (Hexham's Netherdutch and 

Eng. Diet. 1698) [communicated]. 

14. haue more strings... then one: Euphues' counsel here has more 

the air of lover's artifice than of self-mortification, and is extremely 

inconsistent with what precedes and follows. 

27. fained ashes: i. e. let her think the flame has been stifled, with 

(Landmann thinks) a possible penitential sense.


29. paynted sheathe . .. leaden dagger: again as a proverb for false 

appearances, p. 215,1. 9. 

36. Stande thou on thy pantuffles: of pride, p. 196,1. 24, note. With 

all this passage cf. the crone Sybilla's advice Saph. and Phao, ii. 4. 76-115. 

37. vayle bonnet: lower cap ; Fr. ava/er, Lat. ad valient. Merch. of 

Ven. i. 1. 28. 

cease on : seize on. 

P. 256,12-3. Asiarchus... Biarus: imaginary characters, unknown to 

Livy, Plutarch, Aelian, Polybius, or Val. Max.; unmenfioned in Smith's 

Dictionary of Biography, Bodkin is a small dagger, as vol. ii. p. 28,1. 12 ; 

cf. Hamlet, iii. 1. 76 'a bare bodkin.' 

22. Englishman . .. euery straunge fashion : cf. vol. ii. p. 194,11.11-9 

note, and Merch, of Ven. i. 2. 73. 

23. dissolute: i.e. dishevelled. 

33. manchel: finest white bread or rolls, perhaps fr. Fr. main: ' the 

first and most excellent [kind of wheat en bread] is the mainchet which 

we commonlie call white bread,' Harrison's Descript. of Eng. ii. 6 

(Whitney). 

beefe and brewys: 'brewis' was the broth in which salted beef 

was boiled, or, more often, bread soaked in that broth. Cf. Lucio's dream in 

Moth. Bomb. iii. 4. 98-101' I sawe a stately peece of beefe... sitting vppon 

a cushion of white Brewish, linde with browne Breade.' Fletcher's Mad 

Lover, ii. 2. 8 ' Beef. . . lined with Brewis.' 

37. meetly: not 'fitly/ but 'in a measure' (vb. to mete), 'moderately.' 

P. 257, 5. take pepper in the nose: take offence. Nares quotes 

Tarlton's News out of Purg. p. 10 ' Myles hearing him name the baker, 

tooke straight pepper in the nose.' 

7. winch...gawlded: 'wince . . . galled/ Ham.iii. 2. 251 'Letthe 

galled jade wince.' 

28. Diogenes .. . abhorre all Ladyes : probably founded on the ungallant 

dicta attributed to him in Diogenes Laertius' Vitae Philosophorum, 

vi. 2. 4 and 6, especially 

33. a godly Theocrita: I find no mention of her in Smith's Diet, of 

Christian Biography, nor in other Universal Biographies. 

36. Pieria: mentioned Plut. De Mulierum Virtutibus, 16, as the 

means of reconciling, through her Milesian lover Phrigius, the cities 

of Myus and Miletus. Again, vol. ii. p. 159,1. 14 as an instance of chaste 

love. 

P. 258, 7. wight: for a woman, above, p. 222,1. 18. 

30. fire stone in Liguria, &c.: I believe amber is meant. Pliny, 

xxxvii. 11, reports Theophrastus as saying it was dug up in Liguria, 

and Philemon as saying that it gives out flame.

352 NOTES 

31. rootes of Anchusa: Pliny, xxii. 23 ' Anchusae radix... liquari non 

potest in aqua, oleo dissolvitur.' 

P. 250,5. the Walnut tree neuer : not in Pliny, xvi. 80, which discusses 

the erosion of trees by worms. 

EUPHUES AND HIS EPHCEBUS 

P. 260. Euphues and his Ephcebus is a version of Plutarch's De 

Educatione Puerorum, part paraphrase, part translation, abbreviated in 

places, slightly expanded in others, and containing some considerable 

additions by Lyly himself, amounting to about eleven pages, or two-fifths of 

the whole. I have compared with his text, and with the Greek, five Latin 

translations existing in 1578, those of Xylander, of J. Metzler (1527), of 

Fabricius (Antwerp, 1563),of Melanchthon (1519), andof Guarini of Verona 

(circ. 1480); and find clear evidence of his use of the last-named in his 

adoption of some mistranslations found in, or suggested by, it alone, e.g. 

p. 262 1.19' Queenes, not Kinges,' p. 269,1.10' two seruants and one sonne, 

and whether wilt thou sell,' p. 281,1.18 ' Not to bring fire to a slaughter' (see 

notes ad loc). I believe that Lyly had also before him the black-letter 

quarto English translation of Sir Thomas Elyot, printed by Berthelet about 

1535, of which a copy exists in the British Museum, and the wording of 

which Lyly occasionatly recalls, e.g.' Princesse,' p. 273,1.12; ' soone angry,' 

and ' dissemble,' p. 282,11. 27, 31, omitting, like Elyot, five lines at the end 

of Plutarch's eighteenth chapter. That Elyot's translation is in part founded 

on Guarini is evident from two passages where Lyly agrees with them 

both, and where the other translations have nothing correspondent: viz. 

p. 270, 1. 35 the mention of a good locality for education, where Plutarch 

speaks only of method, and on p. 268,11.4-6 the addition ' whom Pelleus ... 

good lyuinge,' which has no representative in Plutarch (see notes ad loc). 

There is perhaps only one point which clearly shows Lyly's use of the 

original Greek, his correction namely on p. 273,1.8 of Guarini's ' Biantem,' 

and Elyot's ' Byas' to ' Bion' (Plut. but instances where he gives 

a more accurate rendering of the Greek than Elyot does (instances in 

which he has however the correct example of Guarini) are found in 

'doate through age lyke Saturnus' (Gk. p. 282, 1. 8, and 

ib. 1. 29 his translation of and his retention of the passage 

about the offences of servants and friends in two clauses, ib. 11. 33-7, 

which Elyot compresses into one. Lyly's own additions will be found on 

pp. 260-1, 264-6, 267-8, 269-70, 272, 273-6, 279, 283-6, at which point 

the narrative is resumed. It is naturally in these added passages that 

his euphuism is most apparent. But even where he adheres to his 

original, he contrives to be himself: his treatment is not so much a 

translation' as a free paraphrase by an original author, and especially


as contrasted with Elyot, by a poet. His chief omissions are about six 

lines in Plutarch's c. 4, five lines containing a saying of Diogenes near 

the end of c. 7, ten lines in the middle of c. 10, and eight at its close, 

fourteen lines at the end of c. 13, in which Plutarch develops the importance 

of memory, and five lines exemplifying tolerant treatment at the 

end of c. 18. I note as significant of our author's own character or 

opinions the following changes or additions (see notes in loc.): p. 262,1. 2 

' trecheries' of conjugal infidelities; p. 263, the necessity of good wits, 

Plutarch asserting the opposite; pp. 264-6, a warm enlargement on the 

duty, merely briefly touched on by Plutarch, of mothers nursing their 

own children; p. 267, 1. 35, deprecation of extravagance in sport and 

parsimony.in a child's education ; p. 270,1. 12 ' It is vertue . . . maketh 

gentlemen'; p. 271, 11. 12, 33, the advice to write out speeches at first 

instead of trying to speak extempore; p. 272, a page added to enforce 

the need of variety in subjects of study; pp. 273-6, the digression on 

Athens, i.e. Oxford; p. 276, 1. 32, exercise to be employed as relief to 

mental strain ; p. 279, a page added to inculcate reticence ; p. 282, his 

sense of the opposition between a tutor's influence and that of a young 

man's flatterers. 

1. Ephœbus this mis-spelling predominates over the proper spelling 

' Ephebus,' which is found sometimes in the running-title of the earliest 

editions. is used in Xen. Cyropaed. i. 2. 8, for one arrived at the 

age of puberty i.e. at sixteen or seventeen years of age among the 

Persians, and occurs in § 4 of the same chapter to mark the stage midway 

between boyhood and complete manhood. 

3. Experience is the Mistresse offooles : see Murray, who quotes two 

instances of the saying. 

6. heereof: i.e. of Athens, the place from which the treatise is 

written, cf. p. 259, 1. 16. In the second edition, Lyly, probably feeling 

the locution awkward, printed ' I have ben heere a,' &c. 

20. Aristotle so precise in his happy man : in Eth. i. 7, the end-initself, 

the chief good attainable by human action, fs defined as 

Tullie so pure in his orator: the Be Finibus or Be Officiis would 

have furnished a better parallel to the Republic and Ethics; but the 

Be Oratore has a more strictly educational bearing. Cf. p. 284, top. 

26. Saint George,. .. neuer rideth: again, p. 313, 1.13. Probably of 

some coin, flag, or inn-sign, where the critical moment represented 

induced impatience in one who saw it often. 

29. Estrich disgesteth harde yron: Barth. Angl. xii. 33 ' and [the 

ostryche] is so hote, that he swoloweth and defyeth (i.e. digests) and 

wastyth yren '—apparently from Aristotle, but not in Be Animal. iv. 14, 

nor in Pliny. Repeated in Pappe, vol. iii. 

P. 261, 3. vnfortunate: without fortune, poor (Landmann). 

BOND I A a.

354 

NOTES 

6. make a course accompte off: treat as a matter of course, of no 

importance: so p. 202,1. 22, note. 

8. y date of Priamus: i. e. lifetime, but rather of its end, Cf. ' expire 

thy date,' p. 222,1. 17. 

9. Cocyx: Gr. KOKKV&, cuckoo: probably Pliny, x. 11 ' sola omnium 

avis a suo genere interemta.' 

10. Pellican : Bartholomaeus Anglicus, xii. 29, said to be taken from 

Pliny. 

12. proper personage", attractive personal appearance; cf. vol. ii. 

PP- 57, 1. 34, 7°,1. 23, 119,1. 8, 121,1. 14. 

24. stone Aetites, &c.: Pliny, x. 4' Tribus primis, et quinto aquilarum 

generi inaedificatur nido lapis aetites'; xxx. 44 ' Lapis aetites, in aquilae 

repertus nido, custodit partus contra omnes abortuum insidias.' 

25. gemme Draconites: Pliny, xxxvii. 57 ' Dracontites, sive dracontia, 

a cerebro fit draconum : sed nisi viventibus abscisso nunquam gemmescit, 

invidia animalis mori se sentientis.' 

30. First touching their procreation : here begins Lyly's paraphrase 

of Plutarch, with the latter's second chapter, the first (of three lines only) 

being replaced by Lyly's own introduction. 

31. entreate off who so euer, &c.: the colon placed at 'intreate of' 

by Erest alters the sense of ' entreate off' to ' treat of, 1 and destroys the 

connexion between that verb and its object, who so euer. 

P. 262, 2. trecheries: infidelities—stronger than in original or translations. 

3-4. For we commonlye .. . parents: so Lyly, with loss of point, 

represents two iambic lines quoted in the original. 

4-11. It is therefore a great treasure , . . boast of their gentrye: 

these eight lines are a free expansion and alteration of the original, 

agreeing neither with Guarini, nor Elyot. 

15. sootheth : affirms to be sooth or true. Cf. p. 282,1.14 ' they that 

soothe younge youthes in their owne sayinges': also Sapho, ii. 4. 

104. 

17. bolde courage: Gk. rrjs ^yaXotypocrvvrjs, Elyot 'noble harte,' 

Guarini ' animi magnitudine.' 

19. Queenes, not Kinges : Gk. ov ftaa-ikeav, dk\a fiaa-iKia-Kovs, Guarini, 

' no reges, sed regia,' i. e. ' reginas.' Elyot, ' not .. • kynges, but only a 

linage of kynges.' Metzler, however, has ' reginis.' 

21. bee sober, &c.: Lyly generalizes what Plutarch says only of the 

time of cohabitation, but the effect is the same. 

28. F Howe the life. . . be lead: there is nothing correspondent to 

this heading in the original or the translations; but it is noticeable in 

regard to the break that Lyly makes here, and on p. 264, that such breaks 

are found in these places in Guarini's Latin, and in Elyot's English, 

version, and in no others, nor in any other places in Guarini's version or

356 

NOTES 

Out of his Humour, v. 5 ' If you can think upon any present means for 

his delivery, do not foreslow it' (Whitney). 

32—P. 267,10. for as the parts ... vertite, and lyterature : Plutarch 

closely followed. 

P. 287, 8. Phocilides: Plutarch quotes the line—iralb* «-' tovra xpew 

bq Ku\a 8iftaXa> ^a>Xo) Trapoucrjays, irapoiKqarjs, vrrooTcaff 11/ paOqarj, padqarj. 

15. conuersation : not talk, as the context shows, but manner of life. 

19—P. 268,2. When thisyounge .. . inheriie them : twenty-one lines 

tripled in length fromPlutarch, c. 7, where the last sentence ' And sooner 

. . . inherite them ' is unrepresented. 

23. vnlearned . . . i// lyued: Gk. dvbpaw6boit dv8paTr6bote fj rj fiapfidpois, fiapfidpois. Elyot 

' slaues or villaynes.' 

31. wittall: properly ' witwal,' the popinjay, a proverb for a complaisant 

husband ; cf. the cuckoo. 

32. mannors . . . manners: the pun occurs again pp. 225, 1. 35, 317, 

1. 12. 

P. 268, 4-6. whom Pelleus . .. good lyuinge: has no parallel in Plutarch, 

but is represented in Guarini's version by ' que iccirco Peleus : ut 

e apud Homer& Achillis curae pfecisse dicit: ut ei dicedi piter ac faciendi 

ductor foret: atq& magister'; and in Elyot's by ' whom Peleus fader of 

Achilles (as Homere the noble poete wryteth) ordeyned to haue the rule 

of his sonne, to the entent that (for his wysedome and eloquence) he 

shulde be as well in speakynge as doynge his instructour and mayster.' 

The other translators have nothing correspondent. The passage of 

Homer referred to is Il. ix. 442-3 rovv^d Tovvetca fxe irpoerjKe fi€ irpo€r)K€ bibav T€ prjrrjp* prjrfjp* epevai, epwat, irpaKrrfpd irpaKrfjpd re (fpy&v. cpy&v. 

•nail? €T* iovra xp*KpaT7]s. 

P. 269, 8. groates: Gk. bpaxpAs, bpaxpas, 

Xyl. ' denarios,' Guarini and the 

rest ' drachmas,' Elyot' xx li.' The weight and consequent value* of the 

Greek drachma varied in different states; the heaviest, the Aeginetan,

EUPHUES AND HIS EPHCEBUS 

was worth more than one shilling of our money ; the lightest, the Corinthian, 

about sixpence. 

10. thou shalt haue two seruants and one sonne, and whether wilt 

thou sell ? Lyly (who also prints ' seruauntes' in the preceding line, where 

the Gk. has dvSpdnodov) dvbpdnobov) altogether spoils the point. In the Greek, Aristippus, 

in answer to the man's remark that he could buy a slave for that 

sum, says Toiyapovv 6vo dvo €^€L5 €%€LS dvSpdiroda, dvSpdfroda, Kal TQV vidv, Kal hv hv 7rpiflj 

7rpifly i. e. 

'but if you leave your son uneducated, he too will be no better than 

a slave.' The source of Lyly's misrendering is to be found in the slipshod 

punctuation of Guarini's version—' Duos inquit habebis seruos & 

filium : & quern mercaberis :' the other translations leave no doubt. 

13. secure of his nurture: careless of it. So ' securitie' below, 1. 27. 

18. trowans: for trow ants, ME. form of ' truants,' in sense of idlers. 

1 believe Lyly is referring to the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. 

33—P. 270, 34. Il is good nurture .. .grace ofvertue: a close rendering 

of Plutarch's eighth chapter, with some embellishment of poetry or 

rhetoric by Lyly, who omits three lines of Plutarch about wealth being 

a mark for the attack of the malevolent and slanderous, and being 

shared with the worst characters, and also the description of Stilpo as 

6 0 Mcyapevs, Meyapevs, 

37—P. 270, 2. as Vlysses sayde to Aiax . . . accompt ours: unrepresented 

in Plutarch and his translators. Lyly inserts it from Ovid's 

Metam. xiii. 140— 

' Nam genus, et proavos, et quae non fecimus ipsi, 

Vix ea nostra voco.' 

P. 270, 12-6. It is vertue ... most happy: these four lines are represented 

only by the very different statement Haihtla Ilai.deia di 8c TS>V T£>V iv rjplv rjpiv povov 

icrrlv dOdvarov dddvarov Kal Kal Otlov. Qtlov. 

17. knowledge, and reason', Gk. vovs KU\ Kai \6yos, vovs vovs ('knowledge') 

being the one that ' commandeth.' Elyot translates by the same words. 

26. wonne the Citie: i. e. of Megara, implied in o Megapel's Mcy apt vs applied 

to Stilpo, which Lyly omits. Elyot has ' citie of Megarie.' Demetrius' 

sack of Megara was in 295 B. C. . 

34—P. 272, 12. But as there is nothing more . . . lothsomenesse to 

the eare: these fifty-three lines correspond to Plutarch's ninth chapter, 

and reflect Plutarch's unprepared transition from general education to 

the special training of an orator. 

35. in such a place, &c.: nothing about place in Plutarch, who is 

speaking merely of sound and wholesome method'. Lyly is following 

Guarini, ' incorrupta ac salubri patria insistere,' as does Elyot, ' that he 

sette them in a holsome and vncorrupted countreye'; and the change harmonizes 

with Lyly's purpose of making severe reflections (below) on 

Athens, i. e. Oxford. 

P. 271, 1. studye to please the multitude, &c.: Lyly omits Plutarch's

3538 

NOTES 

quotation from Euripides, and the argument that those who flatter the 

passions of the mob are little likely to have control over their own. 

4-7. When I was heere a student.. • rawely: four lines unrepresented 

in Plutarch, though the deprecation of impromptu speech-making is his. 

12. eyther penned, eyther, &c.: ' either penned, or,' &c, as on 

pp. 193, 1. 11, 209, L 8. Plutarch has no representative of ' penned,' 

which is Lyly's addition. 

18. (Demosthenes) ... inuectiue agaynst Midias: the reference is In 

Midiam, 191 ; Plutarch quotes the passage correctly enough, but Lyly 

substitutes ' without due consideration ... to be Spoken' for 

Ka\ iraarxwv. 

23. the exercise of the witte: Plutarch, 

32. saiior of his former penning: Plutarch, 

Guar. ' eunde stillu Iterpraetis obseruat'; Elyot 

(evidently following Guarini) ' yet wylle they folowe the stile of an interpretour 

(whiche is with longe taryenge and moche studye).' 

34. immoderate kinde of humilitie: i. e. lowness and poorness of 

style, absence of dignity. Plutarch, ; Guar, 'extremae 

garulitatis'; Elyot, ' extreame claterynge and ianglynge.' 

35. A certein painter brought to Appelles, &c.: Plutarch's story is 

repeated in Campaspe, iii. 4. 76 of ' Aurelius.' 

P. 272, 4-5. swellyng . . . lyttle modestie .. . nothing moueth : Plutarch, 

f H , " 

4 the inflated style is unsuitable for politics, the meagre style produces no 

impression.' Guar. 'Tumidum naqj orationis genus ciuile nequaq. est. 

Tenue uero nusq mouet.' Elyot, ' Inflate and proude speche lacketh 

gentyllnesse, 1 &c. 

6-12. Besides this . . . lothsomenesse to the eare: these seven lines represent 

the close of Plutarch's ninth chapter, which advocates variety 

in speaking. 

12—P. 273, 2. It is varietie .. . / will proceede in the Education: 

here, for nearly a page Lyly embroiders on the theme of the necessity of 

variety, and, freed from the fetters of an original, indulges in his euphuism. 

The words ' I will proceede in the Education' mark his return to 

Plutarch. 

14. Homer woulde say, &c.: Lyly seems to be reproducing Plutarch, 

De Garrulitate, c. 5 

_ a-,— _. ,— _„ — 

[Odyss. xii. 453.] 

23. quiddities: trifling niceties, quibbles; properly the statement of 

the quid or essence. 

25. Asfrologians: astronomers.


P. 273, 3-28. I would haue them ... ouercome with anger: here for 

twenty-six lines Lyly follows very closely the first half of Plutarch's tenth 

chapter; then he breaks off into a digression, quite unrepresented in his 

original, on the vices of Athens, i. e. of University life at Oxford, which 

lasts for some three pages, until with the words ' But retourne wee once 

agayne to Philo' (p. 276,1.14) Plutarch's tenth chapter is resumed, after 

the omission of about ten lines. 

8. Bion: Plutarch Guarini ' Biantem,' Elyot ' Byas,' which 

clearly shows that Lyly had the original before him. Probably Plutarch 

means the Scythian philosopher who lived c. B.C. 250. 

12. as the onely Princesse of all Scyences : Plutarch 

Guar. ' aliaru artium & sclarum uti principe'; Elyot 

' as princesse of al other doctrines.' 

21. obay our parents, &c.: in Plutarch, Guarini, and Elyot, the various 

classes of people who have relations with us are simply enumerated 

first, and the nature of our obligation towards them is given in a second 

sentence. Lyly gives the obligations twice over. 

28. And heere I cannot but lament Athens; &c. : here commences the 

digression, three pages long, on the disorders of University life at Oxford 

in Lyly's day; reflections which evidently roused a good deal of displeasure, 

since he thinks it necessary to append something of a disclaimer 

to the second edition. Doubtless instruction was irregular, and the discipline 

bad ; but doubtless, too, these circumstances had much enhanced 

Lyly's own enjoyment of college-life. See Life, pp. 6-12. 

P. 274, 9. in steede of blacke cloth blacke veluet: cf. the alternative 

title of Greene's A Qvip for an Vpstart Courtier: or, A quaint dispute 

between Veluet breeches and Cloth-breeches' (1592), i.e. between newfangled 

extravagance and antique simplicity. 

29. in England of Oxford & Cambridge: Lyly, as he tells us in 

The Glasse for Europe, vol. ii. p. 192,1. 37, had been a student in both. 

Here, while pretending to distinguish them from iniquitous Athens, he 

nevertheless pronounces them ' starke nought.' 

37.fraightx i.e. ' freight,' 'freighted.' 

P. 275, 7. to the carte: i. e. for conveying criminals to the gallows. 

Landmann supposes it to mean ' to trade,' i. e. farming. 

17. no chaungelinges: i.e. supposititious children, who would fail to 

exhibit the family characteristics. Construct with it * When of olde,' &c. 

=' from the old time when.' 

sayde to a Lacedemonian, &c.: adapted from Plutarch, Apofhtheg. 

Lacon. (Varia), 52, where also occurs the story about the old man at the 

Panathenaea, alluded to again vol. ii. p. 100,1.14. 

28. all thinges are honest there, &c.: Plutarch, Apophtheg. Lacon. 

(Varia), 62. 

P. 276, 2. Chrisippus ... maide Melissa^ &c.: this story, repeated

36o 

NOTES


P. 278, 7. are in minde to be mislyked: Plutarch 

Guar. ' Increpadi plerique merito sunt'; Elyot' be to be blamed.' 

10-19. For if the father .. . mother of perfection : these nine lines 

are freely rendered, but without importation : fourteen lines of Plutarch, 

enlarging on memory, are omitted. 

17. furtheratince: a poor rendering of Plutarch's Guar. ' cella 

penaria,' Elyot 'store-house.' 

19—P. 279, 36. Children are to be chastised . . . much lesse in a 

sonne: corresponds to Plutarch's fourteenth chapter, but departs from it 

widely. The first 4-5 lines are Plutarch's; as are the stories about Socrates, 

Archytas, and Plato (who in Plutarch delegates the slave's chastisement), 

and the injunctions to restrain ' hot and heady humor,' to control 

the tongue, and to teach children to speak the truth. But much of the 

chapter is omitted; and a whole page about reticence supplied by Lyly 

from other sources. 

P. 279, 5-7. It neuer hath .. . recalled: closely from Plutarch, who at 

the end of the De Garrulit. attributes the saying to Simonides. 

7-32. We maye see the cunning.. . face of the Tyraunt: not in the 

De Educations It is noticeable that Elyot, too, chooses this place to 

insert some three pages about Polyphemus and Ulysses. Lyly's insertion 

is from Plutarch's De Garrulitate, from which we found him quoting 

on p. 272,1. 14. The tongue guarded by Nature with teeth is from 

chap. 3 of that treatise, where also occurs 

(see below). The advice to refrain from wine, and the 'olde 

Prouerbe ' quoted, are from chap. 4 (though not l the glasse of the 

minde,' Aesch. Frag. 274 ; cf. vol. ii. p. 83,1. 7, note), as are the stories of 

Bias and Zeno; while that of Anacharsis occurs in chap. 7, and that 

of Zeno's tongue at the beginning of chap. 8. 

21. the Kings Legates: i.e. the Persian King's. 

37—P. 280, 16. But the greatest . . . Lacedemonian to the other: 

these seventeen lines represent Plutarch's fifteenth chapter, in which he 

discusses with hesitation the question whether lovers of boys should be 

admitted to their company. Lyly's hesitation is naturally less, and his 

repudiation of the vice in Plutarch's mind more emphatic, e. g. he inserts 

'as a most daungerous and infectious beast.' This direct evidence of 

Elizabethan opinion is of value. Elyot omits the whole chapter. 

P. 280, 7. Scebetes: probably printer's error for ' Cebetes,' which 

Lyly must have supposed to be the nominative case of Guarini's l Cebetem,' 

Plutarch, Cebes of Thebes was a disciple of Socrates, 

introduced by Plato in the Phaedof and the author of wherein the 

dangers and temptations of human life are symbolically represented in 

a table which is explained by an old man to some youths. 

17—P. 281, 5. But hauing sayde . .. the feare of punishment : translated 

with some freedom from Plutarch's sixteenth chapter, e.g. TOVS

362 NOTES 

becomes 'the nature of diuers parentes,' and 

tne metapnor • onaie ... snaffle . •. bit,' is Lyly's; and 11. 25-7 ' eyther 

with threates ... be rewarded' is Lyly's substitute for the two causes 

suggested by Plutarch for childish errors, the tutor's neglect, or the 

pupil's mischievous disregard of him; and 11. 33-5 ' for hard it is ... 

ouerlashinge affections' is other than the sense of Plutarch. 'Wise 

parentes ... punishment' closely follows the original. 

24. escapes : see Murray s. v. 

P. 281, 5—P. 282, 20. But chiefly parents ... deuouringe minde: this 

page and a half is close in sense to Plutarch's seventeenth chapter, with 

slight compression, or more pictorial language, e.g. becomes 

' layeth a cusshion vnder his eldbowe to sleepe,' and there is small 

fidelity in ' Heerof it cometh ... slaues by free wil.' 

12. goe aboue the ballaunce: Plutarch, which 

all the translators render by' stateram'; Guarini, ' Iugum stateramque ne 

transafdere.' Neyther for feare . .. partially is Lyly's addition. 

13. Not to lye in idlenesse: Plutarch, ' to sit 

idly eating.' The ' was a measure of I1 pints or 1 quart, taken by 

Hdt. vii. 187 as a man's daily allowance of corn. 

18. Not to bring fire to a slaughter: Plutarch, 

Elyot, ' Cutte not the fyre with weapon.' Lyly's mistranslation is due to 

a hasty reading of Guarini, ' Ignem ferro caedi minime decere,' where he 

mistook 'ferro' for 'ferre.' He explains the proverb correctly, after 

Plutarch: cf. Sapho, ii. 4. 110 ' fire to bee quenched with dust, not with 

swordes.' 

25. inScapio: Plut. Guar. ' in scaphio,'i.e. chamber-pot, 

used in that sense in Martial or Juvenal. Elyot 'in a traye,' to the 

sacrifice of sense. 

P. 282, 5-8. soone gone . . . lyke Saturnus: somewhat freely from 

Plutarch, Lyly adding ' lyue lyke a seruaunt.' Plutarch's epithet, 

is closely rendered, perhaps from Guarini, ' lam pater uti Saturnus qdam 

aetate delirat,' Elyot having merely 'thinkynge that in age his father 

doteth.' 

14. soothe... in their owne sayinges: i. e. assent to them ; cf. p. 262, 

I.15. 

19. Panthers ... sweete smell. . . deuouringe minde: see note on 

p. 202,1. 20. Not in Plutarch. 

20-37. yet woulde I not haue parentes... somtimes with our sonnes: 

closely after Plutarch's eighteenth chapter, adding ' causeth a redresse ... 

childe,' 1. 25, and ' he becommeth desperate .. . owne duetie, 1 1. 30, and 

substituting for five lines of practical examples at the end, the sentence 

about' the fairest Iennet.' 

37. Iennet': a small Spanish horse. Arabic word from 'Zenata,' 

a tribe of Barbary celebrated for its cavalry. Cf. p. 313,1. 1.


P. 283, 2-11. If thy sonne . .. then to their wife: corresponds closely 

to Plutarch's short nineteenth chapter. 

11-26. But to retourne.. .youth is past grace: an expansion of the 

first half of Plutarch's twentieth and closing chapter, the last sentence 

enlarged from Plutarch being 

while Elyot reproduces also the remaining 

fourteen lines. 

27. The sum of all, &c.: all from this point is Lyly's addition, as the 

euphuism shows. He resumes his narrative, p. 286, 1. 23. 

P. 284, 1-3. Platoes common weale . . . Aristotle... Tullye, &c.: as at 

the commencement, p. 260, 1. 20, note. 

18. yron mowle: i.e. rust-stain, as on p. 189,1. 33. 

23. Pyrrhus ... striken to the hearte: all the editions read 'Pyreus,' 

but probably Lyly is recalling Plutarch's Pyrrhus, where Antigonus 

Gonatas compares him to a gambler, c. 26. 

He was killed B.C. 272. 

36. as Seneca sayth: the saying is from the De Brevitate Vitae, c. i 

' Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdimus.. . . non accepimus 

brevem vitam, sed fecimus .,. vita, si scias uti, longa est.' Lyly's 

careless rendering is repeated Campaspe, v. 4. 46. 

P. 285,2. Appelles.. .no day... without a lyne: Pliny, xxxvi. 84' Apelli 

fuit alioqui perpetua consuetudo numquam tarn occupatum diem agendi 

ut non lineam ducendo exerceret artem, quod ab eo in proverbium 

venit.' 

4. sayde of Hesiodas, &c.: from the 276-80. 

Plut. De Solertia Animalium, vi. 3, quotes part of it. 

8. the Turtle for loue•: so Mother Bombie, i. 3. 121 in Livia's sampler. 

15. I can not tell, &c.: a hesitation quite inappropriate to Euphues, 

the resident of Athens, but natural in Lyly wishing to soften a little his 

indictment of Oxford. 

30. note you of: brand you with. 

P. 286, 1. an olde man in Naples: Eubulus, whose precepts on 

pp. 189-90 'Descende into .. . friendes desire,' are here verbally reproduced. 

P. 287,10. a greate horse: a war-horse, as in Gallathea, iii. 3. 35, and 

in Middleton and Massinger's Love's Cure, ii. 2, of the martial Clara. 

11. asmackein: a smattering of, as p. 316,1. 29, and M ore's Utopia, 

Ded. p. 12 'one that hath a little smack of learning' (Whitney). 

18. filed phrases: cf. 'fyled speach,' p. 205,1. 13.

364 

NOTES 

19. Eligies of Ouid: thinking of the Heroides, Fasti, and A mores 

(' Elegia 1,' ' II,' &c.) written in the elegiac metre. 

P. 288, 32. Hippomanesi i.e. Hippomenes, the victor and husband of 

the Boeotian Atalanta, daughter of King Schoeneus of Onchestus. Ov. 

Met. x. 565-605. 

P. 289, 9. bird in the limebush, &c.: i. e. limed bush, bush smeared 

with lime, used in Ben Jonson's Barth. Fair, iii. 1. Landmann compares 

Hamlet, iii, 3. 68 'O limed soul, that struggling to be free | Art more 

engaged.' 

12. Nectar, &c.: not in Ovid, nor in Homer. 

14. stone . .. in the riuer of Caria: on p. 210,1. 29, this river turned 

its drinkers to stone. Pliny missed it. 

21. manuary: 'manual'; no other instance quoted, though used by 

Bishop Hall for 'artificer.' 

EUPHUES AND ATHEOS 

P. 291. F Evphves and Atheos: I find no special original for this 

dialogue, though the dialogue-form may have been suggested by Cicero's 

De Natura Deorum, from which the stories about Dionysius (pp. 291-2), 

and Cleanthes' four reasons for admitting the existence of God (p. 293), 

are taken: but both in manner, proceeding by invective and threats of 

divine punishment rather than by argument, and in matter, agglomerating 

texts from different parts of the Bible that seem to support the cause in 

hand, the pamphlet resembles a pulpit-discourse more than a logical 

discussion. One can conceive that the young author of twenty-five was 

rather proud of it, his critical faculty being perhaps swamped by the real 

strength of his religious convictions : he seems curiously insensible of the 

fallacious nature of some of the arguments to which Atheos is made to 

succumb. His euphuism is little felt, because the pamphlet is so largely 

composed of the actual words of Scripture. 

ANALYSIS—Atheos (pp. 291-2) proposes the discussion, asserts that if 

God were a reality there would be more awe of Him and less sin, and 

suggests that the physical world is perhaps the real God. Euphues 

(pp. 292-6) with pious horror replies that even the most savage people 

have the idea of God; quotes Plato, Aristotle, and Clean thes as witnesses 

to Him; and, dismissing philosophy, since 'manifest truthes are not to 

be proued but beleeued,' cites a number of Scriptural texts, wherein God 

asserts His divinity and attributes, passing (pp. 294-5) to others threatening 

punishment against blasphemy, idolatry, and unbelief. He earnestly 

exhorts Atheos to submit, and paints the terrors of the day of Judgement. 

Atheos (p. 296) not unreasonably replies that to prove God from 

Scripture is illogical, since its authority rests on a belief in Him; and 

questions the authenticity of the present books, since Antiochus commanded 

all the copies of the Law to be burned. Euphues (pp. 297-300)


answers that a persuasion of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures is the 

effect of the Holy Ghost; but urges, as ' seconde helpes' to establish 

their truth, their orderly disposition and consistency, the heavenly nature 

of their doctrine and the simplicity of the words that convey it, the 

antiquity of the books of Moses as compared with those of other religions, 

and his impartial relation of facts against his own relatives, the striking 

miracles attending the publication of the Law, and the fulfilment of some 

prophecies. The authority of the prophetical books is also established 

by the fulfilment of prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. 

For the inspiration of the New Testament he urges the simplicity and 

the eloquence of its language, the remarkable circumstances attending the 

call of some of its authors, the general belief of all ages and nations, and 

the martyrs' blood slied in testimony to its truth. On p. 299 he asserts 

that God preserved some copies of the Law from being burned at the 

time of Antiochus' proclamation; from which the Greek translation was 

afterwards made. He threatens Atheos with hell for his inquiring 

disposition, falls back on the sound position that the conviction of God 

is an instinct in men's hearts, and while announcing that he must forswear 

the atheist's society promises to pray for him. Atheos (pp. 300-1), 

somewhat easily overcome by these arguments, now professes the greatest 

distress of mind, and cites against himself a number of damnatory texts; 

whereupon Euphues (pp. 301-4) labours to reassure him, laying stress on 

the mercy and forgiveness of God, and urging the sufferings endured by 

Christ on behalf of sinners, and the examples of forgiveness supplied by 

Mary Magdalen, Matthew the publican, and St. Paul. Atheos (pp. 304-5) 

thanking him, calls him to witness his faith, and Euphues gives the glory 

to God. 

P. 291, 14. frenticke: spelt with e or a in ME.; OF. frdnitique, fr. 

late Lat. phreneticus, a corruption of Gk. from < delirium 

(Whitney). 

23- P. 292,4. Tullye disputinge of the nature of Gods, bringeth Dionisius... 

rewarde our Sacriledge : these sixteen lines are derived from 

the following passage in Cicero, fle Nat. Deor. iii. 34 ' Dionysius (de 

quo ante dixi), cum fanum Proserpinae Locris expilavisset, navigabat 

Syracusas: isque cum secundissimo vento cursum teneret, ridens, 

" Videtisne," inquit, " amici, quam bona a Diis immortalibus navigatio 

sacrilegis detur ?" Atque homo acutus, cum bene planeque percepisset, 

in eadem sententia perseverabat: qui, cum ad Peloponnesum classem 

appulisset, et in fanum venisset Iovis Olympii, aureum ei detraxit 

amiculum, grandi pondere, quo Iovem ornarat ex manubiis Carthaginiensium 

tyrannus Gelo. Atque in eo etiam cavillatus est, aestate grave 

esse aureum amiculum, hyeme frigidum; eique laneum pallium iniecit, 

cum id esse ad omne anni tempus diceret. Idemque Aesculapii Epidauri 

barbam auream demi iussit: neque enim convenire, barbatum esse

366 NOTES 

filium, cum in omnibus fanis pater imberbis esset. lam mensas argenteas 

de omnibus delubris iussit auferri; in quibus quod, more veteris 

Graeciae, inscriptum esset, " Bonorum Deorum," uti se eorum bonitate 

velle dicebat. Idem Victoriolas aureas, et pateras, coronasque, quae 

simulacrorum porrectis manibus sustinebantur, sine dubitatione tollebat; 

eaque se accipere, non auferre, dicebat; esse enim stultitiam, a quibus 

bona precaremur, ab iis porrigentibus et dantibus nolle sumere.' 

25. Apollo: not in the text of the passage from Cicero; Lyly adds it 

from a note, or previous knowledge. 

P. 292, 5. Protagoras: Cic. De Nat. Dear. i. 2' dubitare se Protagoras 

[dixit],'and i. 12 ' Protagoras, qui sese negat omnino de Diis habere quod 

liqueat, sint, non sint, qualesve sint.' 

6. if there be any God, it is the worlde, &c.: an opinion several 

times suggested in the De Nat. Deor., e. g. attributed to Aristotle, i. 13. 

20. stroken : struck, cf. p. 293,1.20, vol. ii. p. 17, 1. 27. The 0, confined 

in ME. to the past tense, was extended later to the participle. 

29. The Heathen man sayth, yea that Tullye, &c.: in De Nat. Deor. 

i. 17, VelIeius, quoting the opinion of Epicurus, says * Quae est enim gens, 

aut quod genus hominum, quod non habeat, sine doctrina, anticipationem 

quandam Deorum ? '—the resemblance to this passage in Lyly goes no 

further—and in c. 23 Cotta replies ' Equidem arbitror, multas esse gentes 

sic immanitate efferatas, ut apud eas nulla suspicio Deorum sit.' 

P. 293, 2. to goe on pilgrimage to images: in Langland and Chaucer 

are many allusions to pilgrimages to the shrine of St. James at 

Compostella in Galicia, e.g. Piers Plowman, i. 48, v. 122, &c. 

6. Plato... woulde often say, &c.: the immortality of God is asserted 

in the Phaedrus, 246 (ad fin.), but Lyly seems to be writing from 

a general recollection rather than recalling a particular passage. 

10-2. Aristotle . •. O thing of things, &c.: the exclamation for the 

same cause is put into Aristotle's mouth in Campaspe, i. 3. 31 'O ens entium 

miserere mei.' The story, also repeated by Nash, is not in Diog. Laertius' 

life of Aristotle; nor can I find it in the latter's works, though in the 

De Audibilibus, 803, and Problem. § xxxvi. 4 is some speculation on the 

cause of the huge waves in the channel of the Euripus. 

13-34. Cleanthes alleadged foure causes... some omnipotent Deitie: 

these twenty-two lines are an almost literal translation of another passage 

in Cic. De Nat. Deor. ii. 5, which I give—* Cleanthes quidem noster 

quatuor de causis dixit in animis hominum informatas Deorum esse 

notiones. Primam posuit earn, de qua modo dixi, quae orta esset ex 

praesensione rerum futurarum : alteram, quam ceperimus ex magnitudine 

commodorum, quae percipiuntur coeli temperatione, foecunditate terrarum, 

aliarumque commoditatum complurium copia: tertiam, quae terreret 

animos fulminibus, tempestatibus, nimbis, nivibus, grandinibus, vastitate, 

pestilentia, terrae motibus, et saepe fremitibus, lapideisque imbribus,


et guttis imbrium quasi cruentis; turn lapidibus, aut repentinis terrarum 

hiatibus; turn, praeter naturam, hominum pecudumque portentis; turn 

facibus visis coelestibus [Lyly's ' fine impressions in the Elemente,' 1.22]; 

turn stellis iis, quas Graeci cometas, nostri crinitas, vocant (quae nuper 

bello Octaviano magnarum fuerunt calamitatum praenuntiae); turn sole 

geminato, quod, (ut e patre audivi) Tuditano et Aquillio consulibus evenerat: 

quo quidem anno P. Africanus, sol alter, exstinctus est: quibus 

exterriti, homines vim quandam esse coelestem et divinam suspicati 

sunt. Quartam causam esse, eamque vel maximam, aequabilitatem 

motus, conversionem coeli; solis, lunae siderumque omnium distinction 

nem, varietatem, pulchritudinem, ordinem : quarum rerum aspectus ipse 

satis indicaret, non esse ea fortuita.' 

P. 293,22. firie impressions in the Elemente: i. e. in the air. Cf. vol. ii. 

p. 34,1. 23, ' straug sights in y e elemSt.' 

27. Tuditanus: Cn. Sempronius Tuditanus, consul B.C. 129 with 

M\ Aquilius. 

P. 294, 27. It is written, bring out . . . stone him: from Lev. xxiv. 

14-16. 

P. 296, 9. You shall conceyue heate... lykefire: possibly adapted from 

Jer. v. 14. 

34. Antiochus commaunded, &c.: Antiochus Epiphanes, king of 

Syria", occupied Jerusalem on the close of his fourth Egyptian expedition, 

168 B. C. He designed to make it a strong fortress ; and, being supported 

by enemies of the Jews, issued several proclamations directed against the 

national customs and worship, desecrated the Temple, forbade the observance 

of the Law, and instituted a search for copies of the books of the 

Law, which he burned (1 Mace. i. 56). This act does not seem to have 

included the prophetical books : it is recognized as helping to invest the 

ancient books of the Jews with their sacred character. 

P. 297, 1. milke of a Tygresse: nothing in Pliny nor Barth. Angl. 

20. Leuy ... Aaron ... Marie: Gen. xxxiv ; Num. xii. 

23. myracles . . . infallyble proofes'. Lyly forgets that miracles 

which rest only on the testimony of Scripture cannot be cited as evidence 

of the truth of Scripture. The fallacy is repeated in a longer paragraph, 

p. 298. 

25. Moses ... assigneth gouernment to the Tribe ofluda: Gen. xlix. 

10. 

27. telleth before of the callynge of the Gentiles: presumably the 

words used at the call of Abraham are referred to— i in thee shall all 

families of the earth be blessed' (Gen. xii. 3). 

31. Esay telleth before of the captiuiiie of the Iewes and their 

restoryng, &c.: Isaiah prophesies the captivity of 588 B.C. in ch. xxxix. 6, 

and the restoration by Cyrus (536 B.C.) in ch. xliv. 28. The date of 

Isaiah's death is uncertain, but may be put between 710-695 B.C., while

368 NOTES 

the birth of Cyrus may perhaps be dated between 590-580 B. c, his first 

political exploit, the conquest of Astyages, dating 559 B.C. 

33. Ieremy. .. apointeth their exile to continew threescore and ten 

yeares\ Jer. xxv. 11 and 12 ' these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 

seventy years. And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are 

accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon,' &c. The duration 

of the Babylonian empire from Nebuchadnezzar to Nabonedus or 

Nabopalassar was sixty-seven or sixty-nine years; but the seventy years 

are, says Cook (Commentary to his Bible)' usually calculated down to the 

Jewish restoration,' 536 B.C., i.e. presumably from Nebuchadnezzar's 

conquest of Palestine from Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, in 605 B. C. 

35. Ieremy and Ezechiel beeinge farre distaunt in places: Jeremiah, 

writing at Jerusalem, prophesies the captivity by Nebuchadnezzar in xxi. 7, 

and the restoration in xvi. 15. Ezekiel carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar 

with other nobles in 599 B. c. was settled with a Jewish colony on the banks 

of the Chebar, 200 miles north of Babylon. He did not begin to prophesy 

before 595 B. c. His earlier chapters foretell the disasters awaiting 

Jerusalem; his thirty-seventh prophesies the restoration of the Jews to 

their own land. 

36. Daniel. . . sixe hundreth yeares after: Daniel's ninth chapter, 

written 538-7 B.C., foretells the Messiah's death. 

P. 299, 4. by & by followed the translating of them into Greeke: 

tLyly is here misinformed. The Septuagint version was made, or at least 

commenced, in the time of the earlier Ptolemies, in the first half of the 

third century B. C. Antiochus' proclamation about the books of the Law 

was long afterwards, in 168 B.C. 

20. 77 were an absurditie in schooles, &c.: the cases are by no means 

parallel. Atheos might have replied that the logical force of an argument 

is, indeed, not affected by the question of Aristotle's authorship of it or 

no; but that the denial of the inspiration of the Scriptures touches very 

closely the credit of what they report, though not of what they argue, about 

God. In schooles... beeing vrged, &c, refers to the public disputation 

necessary as one of the qualifications for a degree. See Life, p. 10. 

32. idle heades would be scoffed with adle aunsweres: i. e. invite such 

treatment. The antithesis of ' idle' and ' addle' occurs once or twice, 

e.g. p. 325,1- 13. 

P. 301, 25. his wordes are like fire, &c.: Jer/v. 14 ' behold, I will 

make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall 

devour them.' 

P. 303, 4. Themistocles .. . Philip y e king of Macedonia . . . sonne 

Alexander : the story is really told of Admetus, king of the Molossians, in 

Plutarch's Themistocles, c. 24. Themistocles died 449 B. c., Alexander 

was not born till 356 B. C. The mistake is not creditable to Lyly's grasp 

of history.


28. endured euen the torments of the damned spirites: the same 

ignoring of the distinction between Hades and Gehenna is visible in the 

treatment of The Harrowing of Hell in some of the Mysteries. 

31. record-, remember. Again, vol. ii. pp. 87,11. 2-3, 224,11. 24-5. 

P. 305, 17-18. Adamant... warme bloude of a Goate... bursteth: so 

'that stone which may bee mollyfied onely with bloud,' P. 210 1. 28,note. 

Also vol. ii. pp. 87,1. 3, 224, 1. 33. 

LETTERS OF EUPHUES. 

P. 306, 1. Certeine Letters, &c.: the epistolary form, of which we have 

already had instances, pp. 233, -5, -46, and shall have others in Part II, 

was probably suggested, as Landmann pointed out, by those in Guevara's 

Libro Aureo, translated by Sir Thomas North as The Diall of Princes, 

1557, and reprinted in 1568, with the addition of a Fourth Book from 

another work of Guevara, inserted before the ' Certen Letters written 

by M. Aurelius.' M. Jusserand points out that Richardson borrows 

this method for his heroine Pamela, who in some of her views strongly 

resembles Euphues (The Eng. Novel in the time of Shakespeare, pp. 130, 

141, ed. 1894). 

11. preuenting age : making himself old before his time. 

P. 307, 5. aslake: Skeat cites an AS. compound ascleacian as well as 

scleacian, ' to grow slack.' Cf. ' abate,' contr. to ' bate.' Again Endim. 

i. 4. 40 (note). 

27. whether-, whither. 

30. brawnefallen: cf. Milo, p. 263,1. 27. 

P. 308, 10. the Emperour: the first we have heard of him, though on 

p. 246 Philautus was said to be ' addicted to the court.' The anachronism 

is borrowed, like the Empress, p. 319, and Athens, from North's Diall. 

See Introd. Essay, p. 155. 

10. the Poet say to truely Exeat aula, &c.: Lucan, Pharsalia, viii. 

493-5- 

23. w 1 Crates... trudge to Athens'. Plut. De Vitando Aere Alieno, 

c. viii 

But the recommendation to go to Athens is hardly consistent with 

Euphues' previous expose' of that university. 

24. with Anaxagoras dispise wealth, &c.: Anaxagoras' (born c. 499) 

abandonment of his patrimony as likely to distract him from higher 

pursuits is recorded Diog. Laert. ii. 3. 2, but Lyly probably took it from 

Plutarch's Pericles, c. xvi. 

33. straight accompt: narrow, close account. 

BOND I B D

370 

NOTES 

P. 309, 12. skinneth: is skinned over. No other intrans. instance 

quoted. 

13. Thunder bruseth, &c.: probably grounded on Pliny, ii. 53, of 

thunderbolts which strike directly, not obliquely, and are thought to 

issue from the earth ' quoniam ex repulsu nulla vestigia edunt.' Again 

vol. ii. p. 75, 1. 37. 

20. ouerlashinge: above pp. 209,1. 5, 246, 1. 9. 

22. Time: thyme. 

P. 310, 1. Euphues to Eubulus: the first edition heads this letter 

'Euphues to Ferardo,' to whom its offered consolation for the loss of 

a daughter, 'amyable but yet sinful,' makes it at first sight more 

appropriate. Lucilla's death is, moreover, the subject of the ensuing 

letter. But Ferardo died, p. 245; and the opening allusion to 'graue 

aduice' offered in vain to the writer indicates Eubulus as the fitter 

recipient, though no daughter of his has been introduced to us. Probably 

Lyly, careless here as elsewhere of the facts or plan of his tale, wrote and 

meant ' Ferardo' in his MS., but altered the name in the second edition. 

Setting aside the ghastly priggishness of such an address by a young 

man to an old—a quality Euphues develops in Part II—the letter is 

one of the best. It may have been modelled on Seneca's Consolatio ad 

Polybium or Plutarch's Consol. ad Apollonium, which borrows (ad med.) 

from Arist. De Anima the story of Silenus and Mydas (next note). 

20. The Philosophers... chief est felycitie nener to be borne, &c.: this is 

the gist of some verses sung by the philosopher Silenus to King Mydas 

in The Diall, bk. iii. ch. 32. The story is told in Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 48, 

114 'Non nasci homini longe optimum esse; proximum autem, quam 

primum mori.' Repeated Pliny, vii. 1. Erasmus (Adagia, ed. 1574, 

p. 346) says that Athenaeus (Dipnosophistae, bk. iii) shows the original 

to be two verses of the comic poet Alexis [vix. c. B.C. 394-288 (106 

years)]— 

24. melten: no other instance. AS. and ME. partcp. is molten, cf. 

'meaten,' p. 235,1. 3. 

26. she shold haue dyed : i.e. would. Cf. Macb. v. 5. 17 (1623) 'She 

should haue dy'de heereafter; | There would haue beene a time for such a 

word.' For the converse use of ' would' where we use ' should' cf. p. 299, 

1. 32 'would be scoffed,' &c, p. 317,1. 29 'thou wouldest endeauour,' &c. 

28. rulethy e sterne: i.e. the rudder, as in Holland's Plut. Moralls, 

p. 301, top 'set them to steer and guide the stern.' Landmann says 

sterne = stars, but stern, sterne is ME. sing.; the pl. being sterren. 

P. 311, 12. art to goe with manye: i.e. hast many, but art not yet 

gone. 

P, 312, 9. the states: 'people of rank and position' (Landmann).


Cf. vol. iii, Whip for an Ape, 1. 104 'ye States and Nobles of this 

land,' also 11. 16, 47; and vol. i. p. 428 1. 27 

P. 313, 1. The Iennet, &c.: repeated from p. 282,1. 37. 

7. for choice'. (1) as being choice; (2) in the matter of choice; (3) 

Landmann says choice = choiceness. 

13. S. George . . . neuer rideth : above p. 260,1. 26, note. 

18. Euphues to Botonio, to take his exile patiently, the idea of 

including such a letter is borrowed, as Landmann points out, from those 

on a similar subject addressed by Marcus Aurelius to Domicio and 

Torquado respectively, in The Diall of Princes, bk. iii. chh. 34 and 41 ; but 

Euphues' letter itself is hardly at all indebted to Guevara or North 

(Domicio indeed has been banished on account of a quarrel, but the 

dominant note in both of Guevara's letters is the fickleness of fortune), but 

directly to Plutarch's De Exilio, from which it is partly adapted, partly 

translated, with the same freedom of treatment as in Euphues and his 

Ephojbus. The succeeding notes indicate all the passages which are 

borrowed from or suggested by Plutarch. The name Botonio is not 

found either in North or Plutarch ; and Lyly adds the idea of Botonio 

being exiled unjustly, and (from Guevara's Menosprecio) that of the 

happiness of getting away from Court-life, as urged on Philautus above, 

and professed by Livia below. 

26-31. Thou say est banishment is bitter. . . whet the sight', lines 

adapted from Plutarch's third chapter; the passage 'There bee manye 

meates . . . whet the sight,' being a loose translation. Plutarch's two opening 

chapters are quite unrepresented. 

28. sowre in the mouth and sharpe in the mawc: the antithesis is 

not Plutarch's ; on p. 218, 1. 35 we had ' hot in the mouth ' and ' colde in 

the mawe.' Mawe: stomach. 

32— P. 314, 2. I speake this . . . heale thy hurt: seven lines freely 

paraphrased from the beginning of Plutarch's fourth chapter. 

P. 314, 3-9. Nature hath giuen . . .or liuings : Plut. c. v 

Socrates would 

neither... ye world'. Plut. c. v 'O 

Plato would... Moone shined: Plut. c. v 

1 - - - . . . _ - > ^ 

Lyly has dropped some of the poetry, and attributed the saying to 

Plato. 

9. euery place was a countrey . . . quiet minde: unrepresented in 

Plutarch or North. Gaunt repeats it to his exiled son— 

'All places that the eye of heaven visits 

Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.' Rich. II, i. 3. 275. 

11-20. But thou art driuen out of' Naples ?... made in Mantua : ten 

lines translated almost literally from Plutarch's sixth chapter, 'Naples' being 

B b 2

372 

NOTES 

substituted for Sardis, five lines omitted, and the honey of'Hybla' and 

' Mantua ' being Lyly's addition. 

11. Naples-, adopted by Lyly as the Italian centre of his tale, and 

evidently both from line 27 below, and from the letter to Li via, p. 323,1. 6, 

the residence of the Court. 

12. Colliton... Pitania: Collytus, Craneium, andPitane were favourite 

suburbs of Athens, Corinth, and Sparta, respectively. 

17. out of farre countries', i.e. get thy living out of. Cf. Introd. 

Essay, p. 125. 

21-6. cast in Diogenes . . . countrey: from the end of Plutarch's 

seventh chapter; the remainder and nearly half the sixth omitted. 

21. Synoponetes : the people of Sinope on the Euxine. ' Sinopenses' 

is the correct form, as Xylander, Basileae, 1570 fol. p. 550. 

banished hym Pontus: Landmann quotes Rich. II, i. 3.139 ' we banish 

you our territories..' 

24. Stratonicus : either the statuary and silver-chaser, flor. B. c. 240, 

or the musician, of Athens, temp. Alexander the Great. 

25. maist auoyde the myschiefes, &c.: in Plutarch the guest of Stratonicus 

is an inhabitant of Seriphos, an escape from whose narrow limits 

is the object of the satirical suggestion. 

27-31. And surely .. .followinge traines: five lines unrepresented 

in Plutarch or North. Traines : subtilties, intrigues. 

32-6. Choose that place... how little serueth: these five lines are 

adapted from Plutarch's eighth chapter. I give all of the Greek which is 

laid under contribution. < ~ ' '_ 

J 

. .. (ten lines omitted)... 

36—P. 315,2. Zeno . . . Philosophy : this story is from the beginning 

of Plutarch's eleventh chapter, his ninth, tenth, and the rest of the 

eleventh being wholly unrepresented. 

P. 315, 5-27. When thou hast not one . . . lysteth Diogenes: this twothirds 

of a page is taken, with but a little freedom, from Plutarch's twelfth 

chapter; the sentence about the ' fayre Orcharde ' being generalized 

from a concrete instance of Archilochus' dispraise of Thasos. ' The 

kinges of Persia,' ' Aristotle,' ' Diogenes,' are all in Plutarch. 

23. his Summer in Naples: Lyly forgets that he is writing to one 

exiled from Naples. 

30-1. But thou sayst... aged: these two lines are adapted from the 

beginning of chap, xvii

374 

NOTES 

'Adamant' to translate 'magnes,' while he correctly translates Pliny's 

' adamas' by ' Diamond.' 

26. peeuishnesse: folly, as is clear from ' forgo their sences.' So 

pp. 190, 1. 23, 204,1. 25, &c. 

38. Psalmes ... Sonnets', opposed by Lucilla, p. 224,1. 5 ; cf. p. 321, 

I.38. 

P. 322, 3-4. come out of a warme Sunne into Gods blessing: this old 

proverb, used again vol. ii. p. 93, 1. 36, occurs reversed in Heywood's 

collection, 1546 (p. 115, Sharman's reprint), 'Out of God's blessing into 

the warme Sunne,' and King Lear, ii. 2. 155— 

' Good king, that must approve the common saw 

Thou out of heaven's benediction comest 

To the warm sun.' 

Its origin is probably Biblical: compare Isa. xxv. 4 ' O Lord, thou 

hast been a shadow from the heat,' and xxxv. 2 ' as the shadow of a great 

rock in a weary land.' But see Glossary. 

9. blasts: cf. pp. 317, 1. 5, 325, 1. 13. 

10. Nylus breedeth the pretious stone, &c.: ' Nylus' for 'Egypt.' 

Among other Egyptian stones Pliny, xxxvii. 17, mentions the emerald. 

The poysoned Serpent is probably the crocodile. 

32. no regard of gathering : i.e. of care how wealth is gotten. 

P. 323, 5. Saba : i.e. the queen of Saba or Sheba, cf. vol. ii. p. 212, 1. 34 

' Nicaulia the Queene of Saba,' following Josephus, Antiq. lud. viii. c. 6. 

6. if thou bee in Naples: i. e. at Court, as above, p. 314,1. 11. 

9. bayte : refreshment. Cf. vol. ii. p. 35,1. 9. 

11. consciences: so. ed. 1613 and rest, correcting consciucs of earlier 

eds., a misprint whose error is partly that of a turned n, Landmann's 

suggested explanation ' concives,' ' fellow-citizens,' ignores the antithesis. 

20. within one Summer: i. e. this First Part being finished in the 

late summer or autumn of 1578, he hopes to get the Second written by 

the end of the summer of 1579. 

TO THE GENTLEMEN SCHOLERS OF OXFORD 

P. 325, 1. fyke Appelles Prentice: I cannot find the story in Pliny 

xxxv. 

9. seding me into the country to nurse, ... three yeares: see Life, 

pp. 10-12. 

10. tyred at: pulled at. Fr. tirer. Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, xiv. 

' Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire 

Than did on him who first stole down the fire.' 

13. addle egge ... idle bird: cf.' idle . . . adle,' p. 299, 1. 32. Landmann 

quotes Troil & Cr. i. 2. 145— 

' If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head.'

TO THE GENTLEMEN . SCHOLERS OF OXFORD 375 

18. Douer... Hampton: i.e. he will land at Southampton, rather 

than be further tossed in the voyage to Dover. The ' tossing' is meant 

to excuse the delay in the appearance of the sequel, which was due in 

summer or autumn of 1579 (cf. p. 323,1. 20 ' within one Summer');. and 

the change of landing-place is a promise of expedition. When it 

appears, however, the friends land, not at Hampton, but Dover, vol. ii. 

P- 35, ll H. 5-16. See Life, pp. 21-3. 

26. Iapiters Egge, &c.: refers to the famous story of Leda and the 

Swan (cf. p. 317,1. 9). Leda produced two eggs, from one of which issued 

Helen, from the other Castor and Pollux. Cf. Ovid, Heroid. xvii. 55 

' Dat mihi Leda Iovem, cycno decepta, parentem.' 

33. badder: 'badder,' 'baddest' are found as late as De Foe, 1721, 

though Shakespeare never uses these forms. 

37—P. 326,1. aunswere themselues: answer to their characters, and 

friendship for himself; cf. ' If thy appearance answer loud report,' Samson 

Agon. 1090. Or aunswere may mean ' satisfy,' ' answer their own doubts.'

BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX 

SINCE the Life was printed off I have made discoveries that necessitate 

the following additions. 

I. I find that a copy of Lyly's Second Petition to the Queen exists 

in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, definitely dated 1601. It occurs 

in Tanner MS. 169 (f. 69), being the ' Second part of the Commonplace 

Book of Sir Stephen Powle, containing copies of tracts, letters, 

&c, by himself and others.' Powle was son of Thomas Powle, 

a clerk of the Crown in the Court of Chancery, and himself held 

a similar position. His letters, preserved in this MS., extend from 

1577 to 1620, and are written to some of the best known people of 

his day. Lyly is not among these correspondents; but the familiar 

' Jack Lilly' of his entry of this document in the Index, made with 

his own hand, may imply a personal acquaintance. At any rate this 

seems to be the only copy of either Petition extant on which any 

date appears ; and though it is contradicted by the autograph letter 

in the Record Office, of Dec. 22, 1597 (cf. Life, pp. 64, 68), it is 

confirmed by two other letters at Hatfield now acknowledged to 

have been written by our author (below, pp. 391-5). I therefore 

accept finally the date 1601 for this Second Petition, which enables 

us to date the First in 1598, and to fix that of the Queen's vague 

promise to him in 1588. 

As the document exhibits some differences of wording from that 

printed on pp. 70-1, I think better to give it. The reader will note 

that the Latin line with which it opens is found in some copies 

appended, with a second signature, to the First Petition (above, p. 65). 

In a copy of both Petitions in the Cambridge University Library, 

however (MS. Ee. 5. 23), it appears, as here, and better, at the beginning 

of the Second. Two other copies of them, seen but not noted 

by me in the Life, exist in the Bodleian {Tanner MS. 82, ff. 23-4; 

Ashmole MS. 781, ff. 76-7); and a third in the library of University 

College, Oxford (MS. CLII. art. 2). None of these four copies, now 

first mentioned, exhibit date or marked difference.

378 BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX 

(From Bodleian Library: Tanner MS. 169, f. 69, being the second 

volume of Sir Stephen Powle's Commonplace Book.) 

M r Lillyes peticon to the Queene. 

1601: about the tyme of 

my L d of Essex followers fall 1 

, . . Non ero qui nunc sum (te 2 miserante) miser. 

note in Most gratious and dread Soueraigne, Tyme cannot worke my peticons, 

Powle's nor my peticons Tyme. 

careksslv After many yeeres, since yt pleased yo r Highnes to except against 

mitten) Tentes and Toyles, I wish yt for Tentes I might put in Tenementes : 

He was a soe should I be eased of courtly Toyles: Some landes, good fines or 

Mr. of the for feitures, yt shall comme 3 to yo Ma tie , by yt just fall of those false 

Reuelles Traytors; That seinge nothinge will come to me 4 by Revells, I may 

and tentes pray vppon the Rebells. 

but eauer Thirteene yeeres your Highnes servant: but yet nothinge. 

crossed. Twenty frendes, yt though they saye 5 they will 6 be suer, I find suer 

to be slowe. 

A thousand hopes, but all nothinge, a hundred promises, but yet nothinge. 

Thus castinge vp the Inventorye of my frendes, hopes, prommisses, 

and tyme : The Suma totalis amounteth in all to iust nothinge. 

My last will, is shorter then my Inventorie: But three Legacyes, 

Patience to my Creditors, Melancholly w'hout measure to my frendes, 

& Beggery not w t hout shame to my posteryty 7 . 

Si placet hoc meruiqj quid 0 8 tua fulmina cessant. 

Virgo, parens, princeps. 

In all humillity intreate 9 : yt I may dedicate to yo r sacred handes, 

Lilly de Tristibus ; wherein shalbe seene, patience, labours, misfortunes. 

Quorum si singula nost(r)i 

frangere non poterunt, poterant tamen omnia mente(m). 

The last and the least, y t if I be borne to haue nothinge, I may haue 

a proteccon to pay nothinge; w c h sute is like his, y t following the Court 

for recompence of his 10 seruice, comitted a Robbery, & tooke yt out in a pdon. 

II. I find, further, that Lyly was' the author of certain speeches 

and shows offered to the Queen in the years 1590,1591,1592, 1600, 

1602, and perhaps 1606. A list of them is given below (Entertain- 

1 about... fall] these words are added, like the marginal note, in Powle's own 

handwriting, the rest of the document being in another hand. In the Index at end 

of MS., also made by Powle himself, the document is thus entered, f. 221 v.: 

' Lilly. Jack Lilly to Queene Elisabeth: 255. ther be 2. sh. (i.e. such) this is 

the later.' 

2 te] tu MS. 3 comme inserted above the line in MS. 

4 to me inserted above the line in MS. 

6 saye] may be intended as sayd MS. 6 will] altered to would in MS. 

1 posteryty] written over family erased MS. 

8 0] written over cur erased MS. 

9 intreate] th added in smaller hand MS. 10 his inserted above the line MS.


ments—Introduction), where, or in the Notes to each, the evidence 

for his claim is discussed. My attention was drawn to these anonymous 

compositions by an article on dramatic Pastoral in England in 

Modern Language Notes for April, 1899, by Mr. A. H. Thorndike, 

which led me to examine Nichols' Progresses more closely, and to 

perceive, what had escaped Mr. Thorndike, that Lyly must be the 

author of many of the pieces there printed. Their recognition as his 

is important to his biography in one or two ways. 

Firstly, it throws more light on his occupations during 1591-1606, 

and breaks to some extent the improbable silence of his last fifteen 

years. It shows him employed, almost immediately on his entry of 

the Revels Office 1, in producing, in addition to his plays, occasional 

devices of a dramatic or pastoral kind, as his predecessor Buggyn 

may have done 2 ; and as appealed to for aid in such matters by 

various noblemen wishing to entertain the Queen. Besides attending 

the annual celebration of the Accession (Nov. 17) at the Tiltyard, 

Whitehall, he must, I think, have been present at Theobalds 

in Herts on the Queen's visit to Burleigh in May, 1591 ; at Cowdray 

near Midhur6t in Sussex, and Elvetham in the north-east corner of 

Wilts, in August and September of the same year ; at Sir Henry Lee's 

house at Quarrendon near Aylesbury in Aug. 1592 ; at Bisham 

Abbey in Berks, Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, and Rycote between 

Thame and Oxford, in Aug. and Sept. of the same year. I 

find no further proof that he participated in the reception of the 

Queen at Oxford, which she visited just before Rycote, than is supplied 

by the heading of the song ' Hearbes, wordes & stones' 

(Sudeley, p. 482) as given in England s Helicon 3 , 1600. This suggests 

a borrowing from the Sudeley show of more than the song, and makes 

it probable that the whole portion of that Entertainment, prevented 

there by bad weather, was brought in at Oxford. Further I suspect 

that Lyly may have been the author of one of the two comedies 

(in Latin ?) given before her at Christ Church on the evenings of 

Sept. 24 and 26, to wit Bellum Grammaticale and jRivales4. Of 

1 2 

Cf. note on ' A Cartell for a Challenge,' p. 518. 

Life, p. 41. 

3 

' Another Song before her Maiestie at Oxford, sung by a comely Sheepheard, 

attended on by sundrie other Sheepheards and Nimphes.' 

4 ' At night [Sunday] there was a Comedy acted before hir Highnes in the Hall 

of that Colledge; and one other on Tuesday at night, being both of them but 

meanely performed (as we thought) [i.e. Stringer and his Cambridge companion, 

Henry Mowtlowe], and yet most graciouslye, and with great patience, heard by 

hir Majestic. The one being called "Bellum Grammaticale," and the other 

intituled " Rivales."' (Philip Stringer's account, printed in Nichols' Progresses, 

iii. I55-)

38o BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX 

the second we know nothing: the first, as is clear from Sir John 

Harington's allusion quoted below 1 , was a dramatized version of 

Andreas Guarna's humorous prose tale Gramtnaticale Bellum, published 

at Strasburg 1512, 4to, repeatedly reprinted, and translated 

into English by William Hay ward in 1569 2 . It was a subject that 

would appeal to the schoolmaster in Lyly, and had already suggested 

the similar jokes in Safko, Endimion and Mother Bombie: but in 

the absence of any printed or MS. copy of the Christ Church play, or 

of definite testimony, the suggestion must remain unconfirmed. 

An interval of ten years separates the Rycote speeches from any 

others in which I trace him with any certainty. I half suspect his 

hand in one part of the Gesta Grayorum, 1594, but only a description 

survives 3 . Similarly there lacks evidence of his concern in the 

masque of eight ladies who danced before the Queen at the marriage 

of Lord Herbert and Anne Russell at Blackfriars on Monday, 

1 ' What is a noun substantive? . . . where shall we try it? . . . Well then; in 

Oxford be it, and no better judge than M. Poeta, who was chief captain of all the 

nouns in that excellent comedy of Bellum gramaticale. For, without all peradventure, 

when he shall hear that one of his band and so near about him, is brought 

to that state, that he is neither to be seen, smelt, heard, nor understood, he will 

swear gogs nouns, he will thrust him out of his selected band of the most substantial 

substantives, and sort him with the rascal rabblement of the most abject 

adjectives.'—The Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596), ed. 1814, pp. 126-7. 

' Bellum Gramtnaticale A discourse of great War and Dissention betweene two 

worthy Pinces, the noitne and the verbe contending for the chefe Place or Dignitie 

in Oration. Very pleasant and profitable. Turned into English by W[illiani] 

H[ayward] 1569. 16 0 . There was another edition, 1576, 16 0 ; another entitled 

The Grammer Warre [1635], 12°'; and it was reprinted in the Somers Tracts, 

vol. i. pp. 533 sqq.; cf. p. 539, 'The Verbe hath to name Amo, and the Noune 

Poeta.' The Verb wins. 

3 That, namely, reprinted from the quarto of 1688 in Nichols' Progresses, 

iii. 262 sqq. At p. 281 we read that on Jan. 3,1594-5, by way of accommodating 

the difference, real or pretended, arisen on a previous 'Night of Errors' between 

the members of Gray's Inn and of the Temple, a device was presented in which four 

pairs of friends, 'Theseus and Perithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Pylades and 

Orestes, Scipio and Lelius,' offered in succession incense on the altar of the Goddess 

of Amity, round about which' sate Nymphs and Fairies with instruments of musiok, 

and made very pleasant melody with viols and voices, and sang hymns and prayses to 

her deity.' Last came Graius and Templarius; ' but the Goddess did not accept of 

their service: which appeared by the troubled smoak, and dark vapour, that 

choaked the flame, and smothered the clear burning thereof,' till certain propitiatory 

ceremonies were performed by the archflamen and hymns sung by the nymphs, 

after which the flame burnt more clearly than for any of the former couples. This is 

sufficiently like Lyly (cf. Euph. i. 198 1. 23; and Loves Met. iv. 1.12).—I note here 

that the speeches of the Prince of Purpoole's Six Councillors, pp. 287-96, who advise 

him in turn to address himself to War, Philosophy, Building, Absoluteness of 

State and Treasure, Vertue and Gracious Government, Pastimes and Sports, 

speeches quite rightly, I think, assigned by Spedding to Francis Bacon (Works, 

viii. 326-43: cf. Bacon's devices at the Tilt-yard, Nov. 17, 1595, Progresses•, 

iii. 371-9), were certainly suggested by the similar speeches of the three Councillors 

in Lyly's Midas, i. 1.

NOTE on Vol. I, p. 381, 1. 12. 

The Money Accounts in the Egerton Papers 

Dr. Furnivall draws my attention to the fact that 

the sheet signed 'Arth. Maynwaringe' was among 

Collier's forgeries: and I see Mr. Sidney Lee in his 

Life of Shakespeare, ed. 1898, p. 236, says 'This 

document, which Collier reprinted in his Egerton 

Papers (Camden Soc), p. 343, was authoritatively 

pronounced by experts in 1860 to be "a shameful 

forgery " (cf. Ingleby's Complete View of the Shakspeare 

Controversy, 1861, pp. 261-5).' I must frankly regret 

my ignorance that it had been thus discredited. We 

lose the allusion to Othello (see below, and p. 534), 

and those to 'M r . Lillyes man,' 'lotterie guiftes,' and 

' the anchor' (p. 497, 1. 15 note). The external proof 

of Lyly's connexion with the occasion disappears ; but 

the entry 'for carriage of tentes from S t . Johnes' still 

stands, being from Thos. Sle's' account, which is not 

impugned. (R.W.B. Nov. 25, 1902.)


June 16, 1600; though the part taken therein by folk with whom he 

had been connected suggests the idea, e. g. the bride, married from 

her mother's house, was the daughter of Lady Russell of the Bisham 

Entertainment, her sister Elizabeth was one of the eight masquers 

(these sisters may have played Sybilla and Isabel in the scene with 

Pan at Bisham eight years before), and the bride was led from 

church 'by the Earles of Rutland and Cumberland 1; The next 

Entertainment one can definitely claim for him is that given at Harefield 

Place in the north-west corner of Middlesex in 1602. For his 

participation therein, on which I had previously decided on internal 

grounds, I find there is external evidence in the entry, in the moneyaccounts 

preserved in the Egerton Papers (cf. Notes, pp. 533-4), of 'x 9 ' 

as paid ' to M r Lillyes man, which brought the lotterye boxe to Harefield 

'; and, from the further payment' for carriage of tentes from 

St. Johnes . . . ixs,' we should naturally infer that he was responsible 

for this use of material from the Revels Office, and still held his 

post therein with supervision of the Tentes and Toyles. I cannot 

repress a sense of pleasure in thus establishing Lyly's connexion 

with an occasion that was marked by the first performance of Othello, 

and with a place rendered further illustrious thirty years later (1634) 

by the performance of Milton's Arcades before the hostess of this 

occasion, Alice Countess Dowager of Derby. 

To one other festivity I think he may have contributed something 

—the welcome, namely, accorded to Christian, King of Denmark, 

on his visit to his brother-in-law, James I, in July, 1606 : an occasion 

on which several poets were employed. I claim for him, but doubtfully, 

a song at Theobalds on July 24, not included in Ben Jonson's 

brief Entertainment of that date ; and, less doubtfully, a song (with 

1 The letters of Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney give some details of the 

occasion. Writing before the event he says :—' There is to be a memorable maske 

of eight ladies. They have a straunge dawnce newly invented. . . . These are the 

maskers : My Lady Doritye, M ,s Fetton, Mrs Carey, M rs Onslow, M rs Southwell, 

Mrs Bess Russell, M rs Darcy, and my Lady Blanche Somersett. These eight 

dawnce to the musiq Apollo brings [cf. the last line of the Epilogue to The Maydes 

Metamorphosis, very possibly given on Tuesday or Wednesday night of the same 

occasion—Fleay's Biog. Chron. ii. 324]; and there is a line speach that makes 

mention of a ninth, much to her honoi and praise.' Writing after it, he records 

how Mistress Fytton led the masque,' and after they had donne all their own 

ceremonies, these eight ladies maskers chose eight ladies more to dawnce the 

measures. M rs Fetton went to the Queen and woed her to dawnce. Her Majesty 

asked what she was? Affection she said. Affection, said the Queen, is false. Yet 

her Majestie rose and dawnced,' set. 67—poor old thing! She returned to Greenwich 

on the Tuesday, but the festivities were maintained till Wednesday night. 

(Nichols' Progresses, iii. 498-9.)


lost dialogue) between a Shepherd and Shepherdess at the Fleet 

Street Conduit on the two kings' entry of the City on July 31; see 

Notes, pp.537-8. Also there is the possibility that he was author of the 

play Abuses, given before the kings at Greenwich by the Paul's Boys 

on the preceding evening; a play which Mr. Fleay endeavours (Biog. 

Chron. ii. 312) on grounds which seem to me too shadowy, to identify 

with that of Sir Thomas More, dated by him 1595-6, but by 

Dyce c. 1590. The dramatic gulf between 1590 and 1606, inconceivable 

were it not a fact, makes it unlikely that such old work 

would be revived for this smart occasion, though the unlikelihood 

weighs perhaps equally against the choice of a play by Lyly. 

This completes the tale of Entertainments I have felt able to claim 

for my author. That those here printed represent his total output 

in this kind is most improbable. They are merely all at present, 

perhaps at all, recoverable. An immense number of such devices, 

and some even offered to royalty, must have perished, or else lie 

mouldering in manuscript form in unexplored chests in the libraries 

of great country-houses. At several other seats visited, for example, 

merely on the three progresses of 1591, 1592 and 1602 (for which, 

see Notes)—notably at Tichfield in 1591—there may have been 

shows, and written by Lyly. The probability is increased both by 

his carelessness of those which have survived, as reflected in Joseph 

Barnes' brief Preface to Bisham, &c.1, and by the anonymity he 

chose to maintain here, as in his Poems. In the two cases where 

.descriptive matter or matter connecting the actual speeches is given, 

Cowdray and Elvetham, it has been supplied by other hands ; in the 

others we are left to piece things as we can. This lack of proper 

stage-directions may be accounted for, as in the plays, by the sup* 

position that they were supplied orally by Lyly himself in coaching 

the performers; but the reader, sfeked to accept as his a body of 

work never yet claimed for him, will expect me to furnish some probable 

reason for the absence of his name on the three contemporary 

quartos 2 . It existed, perhaps, in his feeling that these exercises, incident 

to his position, well enough adapted to the purpose they were meant 

1 ' To the Reader. I gathered these copies in loose papers I know not how 

imperfect, therefore must I crave a double pardon; of him that penned them, and 

those that reade them. The matter of small moment, and therefore the offence of 

no great danger. I. B; 

3 The Tiltyard, Theobalds, Quarrendon and Harefield speeches remained 

imprinted till 1788 and later; and the two songs of 1606 descend to us only in 

a general description by an unknown contemporary.


to serve, and possessing importance for the modern literary historian, 

were nevertheless too slight and too reminiscent of his more elaborate 

work to add anything to his literary repute. This would certainly 

seem to have been his attitude in regard to the contents of Barnes' 

quarto, perhaps the best. But both here and in the other cases there 

may have been the further reason that his connexion with such shows 

was a private matter between himself and the various entertainers— 

work for which he received, perhaps, substantial consideration, and 

which might strictly be looked upon as an unwarrantable use of his 

position at the Revels Office for his private profit. It is evident 

from the Egerton money-accounts of the Harefield show that some 

of the 'stuff' of the Office was carted right across Middlesex to 

serve on that occasion ; and though the Queen must have been 

more or less conscious of the practice, and could hardly fail to recognize 

in the speeches recited to her the hand of her Court dramatist, 

it might be better not to obtrude on the title-pages of published work 

the fact that she was being entertained partly at her own expense or 

by aid of her own resources. Her resentment of such a practice 

may, in fact, be the origin of the royal complaint about Tentes and 

Toyles to which he alludes in his Second Petition, 1601 (see Life, 

pp. 66, 71). The tone there taken implies that the complaint was 

a thing of the past; and the letter to Sir Robert Cecil of Jan. 17, 

1594-5, printed below (p. 390), points us perhaps to that Christmastide 

as the occasion when the Queen's sense of an abuse of which 

the Gray's Inn Revels (p. 380) may have furnished a recent instance, 

culminated in a positive prohibition of any further share being taken 

by Lyly in such affairs. His letter, however, rather implies some reflection 

on the quality of the intellectual ware he provided; and in 

any case she would seem to have subsequently waived her protest. 

The Revels officers, like others in her service, seem to have suffered 

from her parsimony or necessities (Life, p. 69), and she probably 

resigned herself to an abuse which afforded them chances of compensation. 

I will only add that the infusion of woodland life in these shows, 

the part played by hunting and hawking, and the knowledge of 

fishing shown in Cowdray, are eloquent of one who had a professional 

connexion with sport; and further support for Lyly's 

authorship might be found in the lavish use of music. Also their 

double vein of venery and pastoral lends a probability to his having 

shared in the rivalry of Silvio and Gemulo in The Maydes Meta-


morpkosis, a play of which one is further reminded by Apollo, 

Daphne, and the Shepherd in Sudeley. 

Further these Entertainments are of interest as bringing Lyly into 

connexion with a number of important folk—Montague, Hertford, 

Lady Russell, the Knollys—who afford us further possible instances 

of the ' Twenty frendes' of whose backwardness he complains (p. 378), 

and two at least of men who took a more active interest in him. In 

Sir Henry Lee, the old Champion, and the Earl of Cumberland his 

successor, for whom I believe him to have composed the Tiltyard 

and Quarrendon speeches, we have acquaintances who throw direct 

light on the hitherto isolated and disconnected fact of his membership 

of Parliament for Aylesbury, Feb. 1592-3, and Appleby, Sept. 

1597, seats doubtless controlled by those important landowners 1 . 

Acquaintance with Lee is further specially appropriate to one whom 

I have conjectured (Life, pp. 4-5) to be born at Boxley, near Maidstone, 

son of William Lyllye, yeoman of that place. For Lee was 

connected with the Wyatt family, who owned Allington Castle and 

Boxley Abbey in the near neighbourhood of Maidstone 2 ; his father 

having married Margaret, sister of Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder 3 . 

Sir Thomas the younger had forfeited his estates by his rebellion in 

1554, but Mary had restored them in the following year to his 

widow, on whose death her son George succeeded \ The restoration 

can have been but partial; for not only did Elizabeth grant the 

' site and mansion of the monastery of Boxley to John Astley' in 

1 See Life, p. 48. Quarrendon is some two miles north-west of Aylesbury. 

Appleby Castle was one of the Clifford family-seats : see Whitaker's Hist, of 

Craven, ed. 1878, pp. 312, 348-9. 

2 Each is about two miles from it, and from the other; and one or the other 

may be in Lyly's mind when he makes Fidus tell us that Iffida's ' abiding was 

within two miles of my Fathers mantion house' (cf. passage quoted from Euph. ii 

in Life, p. 3). At Boxley three centuries.seem to have obliterated all trace of 

Lyly's family. On the tombstones in the churchyard or on the floor of the nave or 

aisle inside the church is no inscription now decipherable earlier than late seven* 

teenth or eighteenth century, save on two brasses (one of 1576) unconnected with 

Lyly : and the only inhabitant of the name I could hear of, a farm-labourer, came 

originally from Faversham. 

3 Sir Henry Wyatt, ob. 1537 

Sir Thos. Wyatt (elder), 1503 2-1542 Margaret = Sir Anthony Lee 

I I 

Sir Thos. Wyatt (younger), 1521 ?-i554 Sir Henry Lee, 1530-1610 

I (N.B. In 1573 Lee had chambers 

George Wyatt (lord of the manor of in the Savoy; Life, p. 17 note) 

Boxley, 1570-1623) 

4 See Dict. Nat. Btog. art. l Wyatt, sir Thomas (1503?-1542).*


1569 1, but as recorded above (Life, p. 4) the Crown leased eighteen 

acres of the manor of Boxley in 1572 to William Lyllye, whom 

I believe to be our author's father. Possibly the complete restoration 

was made after that date, when Lyly's father would become George 

Wyatt's tenant. George Wyatt, at any rate, was the leading landowner 

and representative of the family from 1570 or before till 1623. 

It was probably he who procured Lyly his introduction to Lord De 

la Warre and to Burleigh 2 ; and if we were to press the autobiographical 

significance of the Fidus and Iffida story, we should be obliged 

to find in Lyly's early love a niece of George Wyatt 3 , of whom, 

however, I can find no trace. But it was doubtless Burleigh to 

whom Lyly owed some help at college and his introduction at 

Court 4 . 

Among the men of letters with whom these Entertainments may 

have brought him into connexion are George Peele, who composed the 

Hermit's Speech at Theobalds, May 1591 ; possibly Nicholas Breton 

in regard to Elvetham, 1591; Bacon at Gray's Inn, 1594-5 ; Sir John 

Davies 5 at Harefield, 1602 ; and Ben Jonson at Theobalds in 1606; 

1 Hasted, ii. 125. 

' 2 By way of strengthening the claim of the highly-reputed father of Fidus to be 

the father of Lyly himself, I append from the Catalogue of Ancie?tt Deeds in the 

Record Office, vol. ii. p. 313, the summary of two documents, which show that 

there were piosperous Lylys in Maidstone half a century before his birth. 

Kent. B. 2552. Grant by Thomas Torner of Maydeston, to John Lylly of the 

same, of land at Northanckland, with a lane called " bromelane," in the parish of 

Maideston, 4 June, 22 Henry vii [i. e. 1507]. Fragment of seal. 1 

'Kent. B. 2553. Release by Thomas Wells of Maidestone, and Robert Welles 

of Ayssheforde, the sons and heirs of Richard Welles late of Maidestone, deceased, 

to William Lylly the elder of the same, of their right to a quarry, with " le 

voydynge" at Bokelande in the parish of Maidestone. 30 July, 15 Henry vii 

[i.e. 1500]. Two seals, one broken? This might be the author's great-grandiather. 

3 Cf. ' went to hir Vncles,' passage quoted from Euph. ii on p. 4 above. 

4 I have already noted the autobiographical element in the ' Glasse': cf. his 

tribute to Burleigh, Euph. ii. 198 : ' This noble man I found so ready being but 

a straunger, to do me good, that neyther I ought to forget him, neyther cease to 

pray for him,' &c. 

5 Among some poems first included by Grosart among Davies' Works, 1869-76, 

i. 460 (Fuller Worthies Library), from a MS. of Laing's now in the Edinburgh 

University Library, is a sonnet that appears (though Giosart does not say so) to be 

presented to some lady with a copy of Euphues, It begins: 

* In his sweete booke, y e treasury of witt, 

All virtues, beautyes, passions, written be: 

And with such life they are sett forth in it 

As still methinkes y t which I read I see,' &c. 

I add here a contemporary reference, omitted in the Life, p. 79, from Greene's 

Menaphon, 1589, p. 51, ed. Arb.:—' Samela made this replie, because she heard 

him so superfine, as if Ephcebus had learnd him to refine his mother tongue, 

wherefore thought he had done it of an inkhome desire to be eloquent; and 

BOND I C C


though, notwithstanding the somewhat isolated character of his work, 

there was always the independent probability of his acquaintance 

with these and others. William Basse, born c. 1583, was too young 

to have been at Thame when the Queen visited the neighbouring 

Rycote: his association with either place—and Rycote was one of 

his haunts—can hardly date before 1596. The only case, however, 

where I see reason to suspect formal collaboration1 is at Elvetham in 

1591, where William Watson perhaps supplied a song and the Poet's 

Latin address. It is to be noted that Watson, whose Hecatompathia 

in 1582 had been dedicated to Lyly's patron, and prefaced by 

a letter from Lyly, was at this time probably his near neighbour in 

St. Bartholomew's Hospital (Life, pp. 66-7); so at least we should 

infer from the following record in the Register of St. Bartholomew 

the Less, which, as said, served the Hospital as a parish church :— 

' 26 Sept. 1592. Thomas Watson, gent, was buried 2 .' 

III. The fact that these Entertainments contain many songs, some 

of them markedly euphuistic, e. g. that on the phoenix in Cowdray, 

and , Hearbes, wordes and stones' in Sudeley, not only corroborates 

Lyly's claim to those in the plays, but increases the probability that 

he wrote others. I have therefore instituted a much more thorough 

search, in MSS. and in the printed Anthologies and contemporary 

Song-books, where nearly all work is anonymous. As result I print as 

probably his a considerable body of verse, most of which has hitherto 

remained unprinted and unassigned. The poems vary widely, both 

in merit and in the degree of probability I attach to the attribution, 

which, so far as time allowed, I have supported by marginal 

references. One or two of them will be recognized as old favourites 

which have been uncertainly ascribed to Raleigh : one, the Bee, has 

been generally assigned to Essex; but few, I believe, will question 

the superiority of Lyly's claim, aiad that we have here an interesting 

testimony by himself to the fact that his First Petition was answered, 

and to the kind of answer it received. Several others, of poor poetic 

Melicertus thinking that Samela had learnd with Lucilla in Athens to anatomize 

wit, and speake none but Similes, imagined she smoothed her talke to be thought 

like Sapho, Phaos Paramour.' Likewise I have been reminded of the stanza in 

Henrie Vpchear's commendatory verses to the same tale, the accuracy of which 

need not be pressed:— 

' Of all the flowers a Lillie on(c)e I lou'd, 

Whose labouring beautie brancht it selfe abroade; 

But now old age his glorie hath remoud, 

And Greener obiects are my eyes aboade.' 

1 Except, perhaps, Davies' in Harefield: see Notes, p. 535. 

2 Collier's Bibliog. Catalogue, ii. 490.


quality, bear unmistakable marks of his hand.' It must not be 

forgotten that, in his letter to Watson of 1582 (Life, p. 27), he 

acknowledges that he has produced love-poems (in an irregular 

metre? cf. those vol. iii. pp. 464-7) which he has no intention of 

printing. One or two are included less for any likeness to his 

style or sentiment, than because they fit the place of some missing 

song in the plays. Some seem altogether too good for the poor and 

halting rhymester of others ; and compel us to remember the similar 

inequality of those in the plays. I am constrained to admit the 

possibility that the best of these latter are by some other hand, 

while still maintaining the probability of Lyly's authorship. For his 

anonymity I offer the simple explanation, grounded partly on his 

letter to Watson, partly on the poverty of some I do not doubt for 

his, coupled with the sense of art he very evidently possessed, that 

he felt but little pride in these efforts; but of course he may have 

shared or affected the reluctance to appear in public as a poet, which 

Puttenham declares was fashionable 1 . I have preferred to label the 

whole collection as doubtful, though of many I entertain no real 

doubt. The reader of the Introduction prefixed (vol. iii. ad fin.) will 

find some helps to distinction. 

IV. I have alluded in the Life, pp. 49 sqq., to the difficulty of 

distinguishing the precise share of Lyly and Nash respectively in 

surviving Anti-Martinist work. In addition to Pappe and the doubtful 

Whip for an Ape, which latter the Harveys seem to have regarded 

as Lyly's (p. 57), I believe we should include a considerable portion 

of the rhymes in Mar-Martine. Not only do the verses themselves 

(e. g. 1st rhyme, st. 2, 4th rhyme, st. 1, 12th rhyme, st. 2) bear some 

resemblance to Lyly, of whose verse-style I have supplied the reader 

with fuller materials for judging; but a passage in the reply MarreMar- 

Martin, the impartial attitude of vrhich, attacking either side, exactly 

reproduces that of the Harveys (cf. p. 57), represents 'Lucian' as 

leader of the whole libelling crew 2 , and another describes Mar-Martin 

1 Arte of Poesie, 1589, p. 37, ed. Arb. 

2 ' On Whitson euen last at night, 

I dreaming sawe a prctie sight, 

Three monsters in a halter tide, 

And one before, who seemde their guide. 

The formost lookt and lookt againe, 

As if he had not all his traine: 

With that I askt that gaping man 

His name: my name (said he) is Lucian 

This is a Iesnite, quoth he, 

These Martin and Mar-martin be. 

C C 2


and Martin as wrangling at cards about 'the elder hand,' a point 

on which Lyly puns in Pappe 1 . Moreover the passage from the 

Protestatyon (quoted p. 50, note) certainly implies that Mar-Martin 

was the author of the play in which Martin (as Nash tells us in 

Martin's Months Minde, quoted p. 52, note) was 'made a Maygame 

vpon the Stage,' i. e. the first of the Anti-Martinist comedies (cf. 

pp. 52-3), the authorship of which rests between Lyly and Nash. 

I add therefore, after the 'doubtful' Whip, such parts of Mar- 

Martine as I think may similarly have been written by Lyly, placing 

it now about May or June, a little later than stated on p. 52. 

V. I include among Lyly's undoubted works A Funeral Oration 

vpon the death of Elizabeth, 1603, professing to be written by ' Infelice 

Academico Ignoto ' (below, pp. 509-16). Nichols who, among other 

details and tributes, prints The True Order . . . at the Funerall which 

forms the complement of the tract, gives only (iii. 620) the bare 

title of the Oration—accident, as usual, conspiring to keep Lyly in 

the background : but a brief notice of this unclaimed tribute in 

Brydges' Restituta, vol iv. 10-14, ted rne to examine it, and examination 

convinces me it is Lyly's. The euphuism is, as we should 

expect, considerably modified since he wrote Euphues in 1578-80, 

but there is no marked difference from the style of the descriptive 

' Glasse for Europe1; and the perhaps inevitable likeness to that 

panegyric (vol. ii. pp. 206-15) in tone and subjects is well supported 

by other points, e. g. the reticence about Elizabeth's sufferings under 

Mary (p. 511), the comparison to Alexander, the tiresome puns on 

'grace' and 'Anglia' (pp. 511, 513), and especially the old Lylian habit 

of free transcript from the classics—the reader of the Notes will find 

passages closely reproduced from Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas and 

Aristotle's De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus, and references to Crates, 

Diogenes, and to Plato's Phcedo, 'which Lyly has employed before. 

In particular I would beg notice for the similarity of language in the 

last paragraph (p. 514), ' I am amazed,' &c, to that used by Lyly in 

the letter of condolence with Sir Robert Cecil on Burleigh's death 

I seeke but now for Machyuell, 

And then we would be gone to hell.'—-Sig. A 3. 

Compare the passage in the Advertisement to Papp-Hatchett (Grosart's Harvey, 

ii. 215), where Lyly's phrases in Pappe are said to 'sauour whotly of the same 

Lucianicall breath, & discouer the minion Secretarie aloofe.' The reader may 

consider that Lucian and Mar-Martin are directly distinguished ; but that does not 

affect the other passage, and I take it that Harvey thinks of Lucian because he has 

previously thought that Mar-Martin is Lyly. 

1 Vol. iii. p. 405 1.31.


(below, p. 393), where, too, he quotes the same sentiment from 

Seneca. The verses with which he concludes are well worth preserving, 

as Brydges recognized; and there is interest in his reference 

to Spenser and Drayton. The signature ' Infelice Academico 

Ignoto' is argument that he had not, up to the time of the Queen's 

death, received any recognition of his claims ; and the tribute, under 

these circumstances, is far more to his credit than was the flattery of 

the Glasse, It appears to me improbable that it was actually 

delivered on any public occasion. 

VI. Sixthly I offer the reader a batch of five new autograph letters. 

Four of them, addressed to Sir Robert Cecil, are at Hatfield. They 

had been miscatalogued as by ' Dr. Lyly' or ' Thos. Lyly'; but 

Mr. R. T. Gunton, Lord Salisbury's private secretary, discovered the 

error in regard to one of them, and has since, at my request, confirmed 

my suspicions about the rest. All are undoubtedly Lyly's, 

and in his hand. The fifth I owe to Mons. A. G. Feuillerat, lecturer 

at the Rennes University, who is preparing a critical survey of Lyly's 

life and works, and, following me at Hatfield, had independently 

ascertained the Lylian authorship of the other four. Hearing of my 

forthcoming edition and seeing it must appear before his work, he 

very generously communicated to me his documents, of which this 

fifth letter was new. He had found it—it is not specified in the 

Catalogue Index—in one of the Cotton MSS. It is addressed to 

Sir Robert Cotton, under date April 30, 1605 ; and, though brief, 

is of no little interest, and forms our latest certain record of the 

author before his death in Nov. 1606. As regards his Life, the only 

change which these letters necessitate is that we must now date the 

Petitions in 1598 and 1601, three years later than there stated; and 

probably also his entry of the Revels Office in 1588, not in 1585. 

See under Letter iv. 

I give them in chronological order, with brief prefatory comments. 

i. ' Ja. 17. 1594 '(-5) : see Life, p. 64. 

Complains to Cecil of some unspecified, therefore probably just 

recent, restriction laid upon the exercise of his literary or dramatic 

powers, on which we should infer some reflection had been passed 

by the Queen or others. It might be referred to the Queen's resentment 

of a satire on herself in The Woman (Life, p. 63; and vol. ii. 

p. 256, note); but I incline to date that play, and therefore any 

annoyance caused by it, about a year earlier (Intr. vol. iii. p. 234).


As a protest against the inhibition laid upon the Paul's Boys before 

Oct. 1591 and still in force, the letter would be still more belated; 

though the Queen's complaint may have related to a slackening in 

his output consequent on that embargo, which would greatly diminish 

his receipts. A third and, I think, better suggestion has been made 

above (p. 383), that the occasion of this letter is identical with the 

Queen's 'exception against Tentes and Toyles' mentioned in the 

Second Petition—some action, namely, taken in consequence of his 

misuse of the Office properties, which she chose at the time to colour 

by reflections on his unproductiveness, if indeed such reflections are 

not imaginary on Lyly's part. If at this time he actually lost his post 

in the Revels Office, he must have been reinstated before the letter 

of Dec. 22, 1597 (p. 68). 1 . 

(Cecil Papers 24/99.) 

my duety humbly remembred 

Among all y e overthwartes of my poore fortunes, this y B gretest, y t 

wher I most expected to shew my dutifull affection, I am cutt of from y 

meanes. 

My wittes wer not so low bitten by eating & neuer filled [' envy' struck 

out and altered to] misery but yt some Inuention might haue grased, 

yf not for Content, yet for servic. I haue presumed to writ thus much 

to yo r Ho: for yt I wold not lett goe y t hold in yo r opinion, yt I haue 

euer endevored, to kepe fast. But I find occasion bald both before and 

behind, for whersoeuer I snatch, I meet w th a bare scalpe. My praiers 

for happy success, and encreas of yo r Ho : house shall be supplied in 

deuotion. And so humbly crauing pardon, I end. Ja: 17. 1594. 

yo r Ho : in all duety 

JH LYLY 

(Addressed) To ye right honorable Sir Robert Cecil knight, one of her 

Matis most Ho: privy Counsell. 

(Endorsed) M r Lillie to my M r . 

1 p. 

1 As said above (p. 63, and cf. vol. ii. p. 256, note 1), it is unnecessary to connect 

with any displeasure of the Queen the fact that The Woman, ent. Sta. Reg. Sept. 22, 

1595,was not then printed; but the evident interference of the Censors with 

William Warner's Albion (3rd ed. 1592, wherein just as he is about to fulfil the 

promise of earlier editions and launch on his account of Elizabeth, whom he has 

called Pandora, he pulls up with a 'non plus .. . Vel volo, vel vellem'-—Collier, 

Bibl. Cat. ii. 484) may have furnished some enemy of Lyly's with a pretext for 

representing his play to contain similar ' matter of state,' and so getting the book 

stayed. A fourth ed. of Albion, giving the promised account of Elizabeth's reign, 

appeared, like Lyly's play, in 1597.


ii. 'la. 23. 1597 '(-8) : see Life, p. 69. 

Begs Sir Robert, then on the eve of his departure for France ,1 to 

leave him three or four lines which may win access for a petition he 

contemplates, i.e. the First, presented 1598. This letter,.then, 

forms a sequel to that of a month earlier (pp. 68-9), and implies, 

what I could not assert before, that Cecil had given some consideration 

to that appeal. Both letters and the Petition itself are directly 

occasioned by the promise of the reversion of the Mastership to 

Sir George Buc, to which the simile of the stone thrust between the 

shells of the oyster is now clearly seen to allude. ' Beeston' must 

be the 'Sy r Hugh Beeston' of Letter v, not yet knighted, and 

probably a son of Sir George Beeston of Cheshire, who for many 

years commanded the block-house at Gravesend, and was 85 in 

1596 2. 


I dare not presume in yo r Ho: affayres to intrud for access, nor to 

be tedious in writing, only this I humbly entreat, (as encoraged by a 

motion w ch I mad to Beeston) y t you r H: will leaue three or foure 

lynes, w lh any one, it shall seam best in yo r Judgment, yt if, I have any 

occasion ether to deliuer a peticion, or preferre a reasonable suit in yo r 

absenc, it may be countenanced for yo r sake, so shall I think yt I am 

not robbed of my hopes, though I be differrd. pardon this p r sumption. 

And so in all duety I pray both for yo r Ho: prosperous returne, & 

success.. la. 23. 1597 

Yo r H: in all servic JH. LYLY. 

(Addressed) For y e right Ho : Sir Robert Cecil knight Principall Secretary 

to her Ma tie . 

(Endorsed) M r Lyllie to my M r . 

I p. 

iii. 'Sept. 9, 1598': see Life, p. 72. 

Conveys his expressions of condolence on the loss of Lord Burleigh, 

who had been ailing 011 Cecil's return and died on Aug. 4 : and 

at the same time takes occasion to remind the Secretary of his claims. 

1 He was sent to Paris on an embassy to prevent Henri IV from making separate 

peace with Philip II; he reached Paris March 3, and was back in England April 29. 

(Dict. Nat. Biog.) 

2 Calendar of Hatfield MSS. vols. iv. p. 240, vi. p. 218. In these MSS. from 

1595 onwards, the son figures generally as ' M r . Beeston,' a friend of Cecil, and also 

of Raleigh, at whose return to England in the autumn of 1595 he expresses extreme 

pleasure (id. vol. v. p. 391). In a memorandum of Cecil's dated nine days before 

Lyly's letter, Jan. 14, 1597-8, he is named among other courtiers who had offered 

to accompany him to France (id, vol. viii. p. 16).


The First Petition, with which the expression ' ten yeres' leads us to 

associate it, had probably ere now been presented. From the Bee 

poem, which also speaks of ' ffiue yeares twise told' and ' promises 

perfume' (vol. iii. p. 497), we should certainly infer that it had received 

a very discouraging reply (stt. 2-4) ; but in the interval the Queen, 

who had possibly seen the poem, may have softened. There is no 

certainty, however, that her pleasure ' y t y or Ho : and M r Grevil may 

be her "Remembrauncers' refers to Lyly's case: the words may be 

used quite generally of their assumption of functions vacated by 

Burleigh's death, from which Lyly ventures to draw some private 

encouragement. The most interesting point is the mention of 

' a Brother of myne, chaplayne of y e Savoy,' some Latin verses of 

whom on Burleigh's death are added. It forms an exception to my 

statement on p. 6 that Lyly mentions no relative beyond his wife and 

children. 'A Master Chaplain and four other chaplains' were 

included on the foundation of the Savoy in the licence given to the 

executors of Henry VII by his successor in 1512, and seem to have 

been appointed regularly until the dissolution of the Hospital in 

1702 1; but no list of them survives, and the only other mention 

I can find of chaplain Lyly is in a letter among the Sutherland MSS., 

dated June 14, 1596, which shows that he had held the chaplaincy 

for some years 2 . Possibly he should be identified with the Peter 

Lyllie who occasionally discharged the episcopal function of booklicenser 

in the years 1597, 1598, and 1600 (p. 44, note 3), and is 

confused with our author in the entry of the Sixe Covrt Comedies, 

Jan. 9, 1627-8 (see vol. ii. p. 302); but more probably that individual 

was the grammarian's grandson, who received the rectory of Fulham 

May 17, 1598, and a prebend at St. Paul's Ap. 16, 1599 3 . 

t 


my duety remembred. 

I hope your honnor will pardon this unexpected p r sumption, to serve 

you, wt a writt of Tandem aliquando 4 , being the last yt offer a Remembraunc 

of my deuotion. When I ballaunced y e matter wt wordes, I found 

1 Lockhart's "The Savoy Chapel, pp. 10-11. 

3 Hist. MSS. Commits., Fifth Report, p. 139 a. It is from 'W. Moune' 

[i.e. Dr. William Mount], Master of the Savoy, to Lord Cobham at Court, about 

a Mr. Bigge, chaplain of the Savoy, who, when charged before the Archbishop 

with marrying without licence, had defended himself by saying ' he thought he 

might well do it, as his fellow chaplains, Mr. Horwode and M r . Lyllye, had 

married without licence as many or more than he had.' 

3 Dict. Nat. 'Biog. art. 'Lily or Lilly, Peter (d. 1615).' 

* Opening words of the second Catiline Oration.


y e worth to weighdowne all witt. He that studies, to be longest in y e 

Comendacon, must come short. I Leave discourses to thos, y* have 

more Copy of words but not more feeling of greif, and Content my self, 

yt all my Epitaphes be written in amazednes, leving them as heads for 

other to Anotamize, concluding wt yt true saing. Leves curae loquntur, 

ingentes stupent 1.. I have inclosed, a few verses of a Brother 8 of myne, 

chaplayne of y e Savoy, who is a partner of the Comon loss, and sheweth 

both his affection & duety. 

And so as one of y e Queens patients, who have nothing applied thes 

ten yeres 2 to my wantes but promises, I humbly end, hoping that seing 

her matie is plesed yt y or Ho: and M r Grevil may be her Remembrauncers, 

I shall find a spedy repayre of my ruined expectation/. 

Sept. 9 1598 

humbly deuoted to yo r h: dispositfi 

J HON. LYLY. 

1 

Csecilius moritur; lachrimas hoc singultibus addant, 

Omnis in hoc vno concidit orbis honos. 

2 

Virtutes in se prudentia continet omnes, 

ipsaq3 tecum obiit Cecili; die vbi Virtus ? 

3 

Foelix, o nimium foelix, bona si mea nossem 

Anglia . dixerat haec, gemiturq3 ecumbit anhelans 

(Addressed) For y e right honorable Sir Robert Cecil Knight Principall 

Secretary to her Ma tie . 

(Endorsed) 9 September 98 D r Lyly 8 to my M r . Epitaphe upon the 

death of my lo. Threr. 

iv. 'Feb. 27, 1606'(-i) : see Life, p. 74. 

Suggests that something might be allotted him out of the property 

forfeited by the rebels, i. e. undoubtedly, Essex and the 

supporters of his rash movement at the beginning of this 

month, Feb. 8. Essex had been arrested at his own house 

on the evening of that day, brought to trial and condemned 

1 2 

Phaedra in Seneca's Hippolytus, 607. 

See on next letter. 

3 

' Dr. Lyly' is probably a mistake of Cecil's secretary, who was confusing the 

evidently, obscure chaplain of the Savoy with the well-known Dr. Edmund Lilly, 

nominated by Lord Buckhurst, the Chancellor of Oxford, for the Deanery of Christ 

Church two years before ; about which nomination, and Essex's opposition thereto, 

Buckhurst writes to Cecil on May 27, 1596 {Calendar of the Hatfield MSS. vol. vi. 

p. 197). On the back of another letter, unconnected with the subject, Cecil made 

two days later a list of Doctors of Divinity, in which ' Lyllye' appears, but no 

duplicate or variant of the name (ib. p. 199). Cf. also Dr. Edmund Lilly's letter 

to Cecil of Dec. 9, 1596 (ib. p. 510.)


on the 19th, and executed (after Elizabeth had once recalled her 

signature of the warrant) on the 25th, i. e. two days before Lyly's 

letter. The language used in regard to these ' Rebells' is so close an 

anticipation of that of the Second Petition (pp. 70-1) as requires us 

to suppose the two documents to refer to the same events and be 

written approximately at the same time. This, like that, speaks 

moreover of ' 13 yeres servic'; just as the 'ten yeres' of the preceding 

letter corresponds with the ' Tenn yeares' of the First Petition. 

Moreover we have the definite date 1601, affixed to the copy 

of the Second in Stephen Powle's MS., placing it at least a month 

after the present letter. Clearly I have, in the Life, antedated them 

by three years. Even some of the language in the letter of Dec. 22, 

1597 (pp. 68-9) would come more appropriately shortly before the 

First; especially the opening, the phrase 'vnwearied pacienc' repeated 

in that Petition, and the allusion to the promise of the Mastership 

to Buc which would correspond to the ' dead hopes' in the same. 

Yet its figures, on the strength of which I dated them in 1595 and 

1598, are fully as explicit as those of these later letters, which require 

1598 and 1601. Writing Dec. 22, 1597, he says he has waited 

patiently ' thes 12 yeres,' and hopes for satisfaction ' in the 13': 

while 1585, to which this points as the date of his entry of the Office, 

might, on other grounds, seem a better year for such entry than 1588. 

By way of reconciling the discrepancy we might suppose the Queen's 

vague promise of the Mastership made, not on his entry in 1585, but 

some three years later; and that, in the formal Petition, Lyly rectified 

an error of memory, or an exaggeration, made in the private appeal 

to Cecil in the preceding December. Since, however, the actual 

words ' I was entertayned yo r Ma ties servant ... I dare not saye w th 

a promise, butt a hopeffull Item, of the Reversion' rather imply 

a promise made at the time of his entry, I think better, now, to place 

that entry in 1588, which is more in accord with the witness of the 

Revels Accounts (cf. p. 41), and to explain the contradiction of dates 

by supposing ' thes 12 yeres' of the letter of Dec. 1597 to refer rather 

to his vice-mastership of the Boys, the commencement of which may 

still be put in 1585. In that capacity, though working for the Queen 

in the composition of plays for her amusement, his connexion with 

the Office was merely informal and incidental (pp. 34-6); and it 

would become formal only on his receiving the Clerk-Controllership 

in 1588. By separating, then, two steps in his career hitherto 

assumed as' simultaneous, we get rid of the difficulty, and correct


a mistake which without the fresh evidence must have remained 

undetected. 


Right Ho: vousalf to cast an eye to 2 lynes. I wold be an humble 

Suter to her Ma tie , to haue something out of y e landes, leases, goods or 

Fynes, yt shall fall unto her highnes, by the true fall, of thes false, 

desperat and dislioll Traytors. I am not so impudent as to intreat yo r 

Ho : as a 1 motioner, but a favorer, yf happily it be moued yt after 13 

yeres servic & suit for y e Revells, I may turne all my forces & frends 

to feed on y e Rebells. In all onely I end, wishing the end of all ther lives 

to be such, as goe about untimely to seek an end of her hignes and yors. 

Feb 27. 1600 yo H to be disposed JH : LYLY 

{Addressed) For y e right Ho: Syr Robert Cecil knight Principall 

Secretary to her Ma tie . 

{Endorsed) M r Lilly to my M r 

½p. 

v. 'April the Last, 1605 ': Life, p. 76. 

The Cotton letter, which I owe to M. Feuillerat, is among the 

MSS. damaged by the fire at Ashburnham House on Oct. 23, 1731, 

before the Cotton Library found its final home at Bloomsbury (1753): 

but the portion destroyed is but one eighth or ninth of the whole, 

and, being at the side, can pretty certainly be restored from the context. 

Very possibly M. Feuillerat's restoration may differ slightly 

from mine, nor do I know if he shares my view of the letter's pur. 

port. It runs as follows :— 

(Cotton MSS. Jul. Caes. iii. f. 246.) 

Yf I may intreat 3 or 4 lynes from 

(you) to Mr Sollictor who hath my booke 

(sent) to him by Sy r Hugh Beeston, in my 

(behalf 2 :) both for his good Counsell & quick dispatch 3 I hon 

(nor him) being a great Scholer, & you my good 

(frend also tender) me very well, you have 

(known) me long, though never rich, honest 

(thoug)h never happye, & to effect of* 

(which )e 5 , you r Judgment must sett downe, for 

(my) good, what shall pleas you; my man 

1 yo r Ho: as a] the MS. reads yo r a Ho: a. 

9 The tail of some long letter followed by a dot (or the top of an e) is just 

visible. It might be ' abfenfe.' 

3 & quick dispatch] written above the line as an insertion, 

4 & to effect of] Lyly first wrote & the effect of, and it is uncertain whether his 

erasure of the is meant to include the &, or whether of is or is not erased, 

5 (which)e] the surviving letter may be r, in which case perhaps (yt soone)r, 

should be read.


(sh)all Carry yo r Letter. And so w h my very 

(hear)ty Corh dls : I Committ yo u to y e Lord, 

(Ap)ril the Last . 1605. 

Yo rs to vse/ 

J HON LYLY. 

{Endorsed) To y e Right H(bl)e 

my verye good frend 


Beeston, is meant—is 'a great Scholer'; words which Lyly may 

intend merely as a general reason for his respect, a compliment 

which Cotton might reproduce in his requested note of introduction. 

The letter plainly has some practical and particular end in view, one 

to which Doddridge's * good Counsell & quick dispatch' will be of 

service, one about which Lyly himself will lose no time, and therefore 

begs that the bearer—so I understand it—may be entrusted 

with Cotton's note at once. This summary, hardly courteous, 

method does not look like a literary affair. I take it that the 

'booke' sent to the eminent lawyer by Beeston, the man of affairs 

was no product of our author's brain, but a much more matter-of-fact 

charter or deed of conveyance of land1. The drawing of such a 

' booke' was sometimes a very intricate affair, especially if it concerned 

Crown land, or land in which the Crown had rights. Special 

privileges, conflicting claims, questions of arrears of rent for which it 

was desirable to accept a composition, might have to be settled 

before the legal transfer could be made; and there can be little 

doubt that a law-officer of the Crown, apart from the legal weight 

attaching to his decisions, might, if he chose, considerably expedite 

procedure. I cannot illustrate this better than by quoting in a note 

a letter often years earlier, in which Beeston had also been concerned 2 . 

In a word, the interpretation I put upon this final letter of Lyly is 

that, whether as a result of that third petition of which he encloses 

a copy (now lost) in the letter to Cecil of Feb. 4, 1602[-3] (p. 75), or 

of fresh applications made to her successor, the ' poor patient' has at 

length got the ' something' he craved, has actually received some 

1 This ancient legal term, seen in the AS. bbc-land, was even now becoming 

obsolete; the latest instance the N. E. D. quotes is from the Bible, 1611 ,Jerem. xxxii. 

12 ' The witnesses that subscribed the booke [1885, R. V. ' deed '] of the purchase.' 

Cf. 1 Henry IV. 111. 1. 224 ' By that time will our Booke, I thinke, be drawne.' 

2 RICHARD PERCIVAL TO SIR ROBERT CECIL—1595, July IT.—'This book 

between Sir William Hatton and you is fully agreed upon and will be engrossed 

and ready to be sealed by tomorrow, 8 of the clock in the morning. Myself and 

M r . Willis are named to the intent the whole moiety shall not settle in M r . Beeston, 

who is very desirous to lay out ;£88 more, which maketh a full third part. The 

book between Longford and you is not yet agreed, being a conveyance so intricate 

as M r . Hesketh desireth to have M r . Serjeant Warburton's advice, which shall be 

had. M r . Longford will move yon that he may receive his rents, over and above 

his third part due at Whitsuntide last, because he reconciled himself to the church 

before thnt time; meaning by this stratagem to draw some £ioo more from you. 

But he may be answered that the land is in extent for arrearages due for many 

years past to the Queen, which cannot be discharged by his coming to the church ; 

whereas if all arrearages were paid and that he stood on even ground at Whitsuntide, 

you might shew him that favour which now you cannot.—From your house 

this present Friday morning/—Endorsed: ' 11 Julii, 1595.' Holograph ½ p., 33/32. 

(Calendar of Hatfield MSS. vol. v. p. 277.)


grant of Crown land, the legal conveyance of which is now, April 

1605, in hand. The grant itself, if it survives, has escaped my 

researches at the Record Office; but the explanation seems more 

probable than one which should relate the letter to some lost literary 

work. It is pleasant to be able, at the very end of my task, and 

almost of Lyly's life, to discern, if but faintly, some break and lifting 

in the cloud of anxiety and disappointment that had brooded over 

him so long; and I believe we may find confirmation of it in the fact 

that when the Revels Accounts are resumed, in the year Nov. 1604 

to Nov. 1605, Edmond Pagenham appears in the office of Clerk- 

Controller, which Lyly had probably held at least as lately as Aug. 

1602 (p. 381, above). It is natural to connect this circumstance with 

the letter; and to suppose that he had raised money on his new 

possession and retired from duties of which he had long grown 

weary, or that resignation was understood as a condition of the grant. 

If this be so, the interval for which Accounts are lacking, 1588-1604, 

exactly covers, by a singular coincidence, the period of Lyly's tenure 

of his post (above, p. 394). But, grant or no grant, he seems to have 

remained at St. Bartholomew's, where he is buried on Nov. 30, 1606 .1 

CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY. 

Oct. 9. Oct. 8. 

1553- 1554- Birth. 

1569 (Spring). Enters Magd. Coll. Oxford. Spends three years 

in 'the country,' perhaps as a tutor. 

April 27, 1573. M.A. June 1, 1575. 

B.A. 

1575-6. Perhaps at Cambridge. M.A. there, 1579. 

I 

577-8. Acquaintance with Harvey ' in the Savoy,' 

• 1578 (Dec). Publication of Euphues, Part I. 

1579. Private Secretary to the Earl of Oxford. 

1580 (Easter). Publication of Euphues, Part II. 

1580-4. Production of Campaspe, Sapho and Phao, Gallathea. 

1585 (April). Vice-master of the Paul's Boys. 

1586-8. Production of Endimion and Loves Metamor 

1588. 

phosis (earlier form). 

Clerk-Controller of the Revels and of Tentes and 

Toyles. 

1589. Midas produced. 

• 1 I am told by Dr. Norman Moore that the burial-ground was situate on the south 

side of the present square of the Hospital. The church is on the north.

1590. 

1591. 

1590-2. 

I 593. 

1594--5. 

1597. 

1598. 

1599. 

1601. 

1602. 

1602-3. 

1604. 

1606 (Nov. 30). 


Mother Bombie produced. 

Inhibition of the Paul's Boys. 

Several Entertainments produced. 

The Woman in the Moone produced. 

The Queen's displeasure. 

The Revels Mastership promised to Buc. 

The First Petition. 

The Maydes Metamorphosis produced. 

The Second Petition. 

Harefield Entertainment. 

A Third Petition (lost). 

Probable grant of land and resignation of his post 

in the Revels Office. 

His burial at St. Bartholomew's. 

NOTE I.—For a long time I was minded to include among Lyly's 

works one which would have suggested that, before the letter to Cotton 

was written, he had spent some time abroad, especially in Italy—to wit, 

An Okie Mans Lesson and a Young Mans Loue, published 1605 4 0 

as ' By Nicholas Breton.' In a signed dedication to Sir Thomas Linwraye, 

Breton speaks of its wit, learning and judgment with a want 

of modesty unusual in an Elizabethan poet; and in a further address 

to the Reader describes it as a discourse he has ' met with of late . . . 

written by I know not whom.' Grosart, regarding this as merely a playful 

device, an ' ever-recurring trick of expression,' included it in his 

edition of Breton's Works, 1879, vol. ii; but Hazlitt in his Handbook 

(p. 60) had classed it as ' edited' by Breton.1 In general tone and in 

the subjects treated (the Terentian opposition between age and youth, 

represented by the interlocutors ' Chremes' and ' Pamphilus,' the old 

man's distrust of travel and the importance he attaches to money, the 

opposition between Court, country, and University life, the advice on 

marriage, the jokes on Latin grammar, the batch of favourite.naturalhistory 

allusions) the piece is extremely like Lyly; the position and 

character of Chremes—a wealthy yeoman, proud of and indulgent to his 

clever son, though with a private assurance of the superior reliance 

to be placed on his own native shrewdness and experience—exactly 

tallies with what we know, or have surmised, of Lyly's father (Life, pp. 3- 

5) ; and the dialogue has several reminiscences of Euphues and Mother 

Bombie. These last, however, are mainly proverbial or expressive of 

general sentiment, not the close reproductions of special phrase which 

helped us in the Entertainments. The general run of the style exhibits 

1 Brydges' Censura Literaria, ii. 180, has a brief note on it. Percy pronounced 

it Breton's; Reed, to be edited by Breton.


unlikeness even in the likeness, e.g. the brief rattling exchange of conceited 

question and reply, which recalls the talk with Cupid in Gallathea 

and Loves Metamorphosis, is found elsewhere in Breton, and lacks something 

of the point with which Lyly would have infused it; and there is, 

besides, an occasional inconsequence in the reasoning or language which 

Lyly would hardly have passed. I notice, moreover, one or two things 

that occur in other of Breton's works ; there is an improbability about 

his concern in it, if Lyly's ; and finally, after long hesitation, I decide 

not to claim it. 

NOTE II.—Inasmuch as the writer of the article on Bishop Joseph 

Hall in the Dict, Nat. Biog. suggests the identity of my author with 

a character whom I ignored in the Life—' a witty and bold atheist, one 

M r Lilly, who, by reason of his travels and abilities of discourse and 

behaviour' was able seriously to hamper Hall with his patron Sir Robert 

Drury on his presentation to the living of Halsted in Essex in 1601, and 

whose subsequent removal by the Plague, smoothing his path before his 

marriage in 1603, Hall regards as a providential interposition (Observations 

on his own life, p. xxxvii of S. W. Singer's ed. of the Satires, 

1824), I think better to point out that the suggested identity is contradicted 

by, inter alia, dates. 

NOTE III.—' No Greek, I suppose?' is a question sometimes put me 

in regard to Lyly's attainments: and so I state here my opinion 

that, though he probably read Latin with far more ease, and leaned, 

like most of his contemporaries, on Latin translations of Aristotle, Plutarch, 

and the Greek authors generally, yet he did possess some 

knowledge of the language; as is shown by his correction, in Ephcebus 

of the ' Biantem' of Guarini and ' Byas ' of Elyot to ' Bion' with Plutarch 

(see Notes, p. 352), by his fanciful derivation of in another passage 

supplied by himself (see Note on p. 266 1. 13), and by his coinage of 

imaginary Greek names to colour some natural-history fiction of his own 

e.g. * though the stone Cylindrus at euery thunder clappe, rowle from the 

hill,' Euph. i. 219 1. 5, 'the stone Pansura, which draweth all other 

stones, be they neuer so heauy,' Euph. ii. 184 1. 3, and ' Anyta, which 

being a sweet flower at the rising of the sunne, becommeth a weede, 

if it be not pluckt before the setting,' Saph. ii. i. 91—for none of which 

do I find any original in Pliny. Cf. ' a sparke fell into the eyes oiActina, 

whereoff she dyed,' Euph. ii. 171 1. 30. On the other hand he blindly 

follows the mistakes of Abraham Fleming's translation of Aelian's Varia 

Historia (1576 4 0 . fols. 21, 152, 156): cf. notes on Euphues ii. 107 1. 28, 

166 1. 35,203 1. 34. 

NOTE IV.—In view of Lyly's very probable connexion, in a literary 

sense, with Spenser and that elder group of scholars and poets—Sidney, 

Greville, Dyer, and Harvey—who were strongly sensible of the value of 

Chaucer's work, I collect here one or two passages or points wherein he 

may have been influenced by that poet.


In Euphues i. 316 the letter to Alcius about true 'gentilesse' maybe 

due to the famous passage in The Wyf of Bathes Tale D. 1109-64; in 

Euph. ii. 43 1. 2 we have ' a Caunterbury tale' as synonym for a fable, 

and in ii. 83 1. 9 ' a fine taste noteth the fond appetites.' &c. may be 

reminiscent of the Wife's Prologue D. 466, 'A likerous mouth moste 

han a likerous tayl,' while ' coltes tooth,' 1. 602, occurs Euph. ii. 172 1. 25. 

In Gallathea we have all the matter of the Alchemist, including his 

desertion by Peter, clearly borrowed (with probably the intervention of 

Reginald Scot) from the Canorts Yeoman' s Prologue and Tale, wherein 

the exclamation ' Peter,'1. 665, may have suggested the name of Lyly's 

rascal, while the name of Robin, the miller's son, and the tale of the 

Astronomer falling into a pond, may be taken from The Milleres Tale; 

in the same play, and in Endimion, fairies are introduced, perhaps from 

Scot, perhaps from the Wyf of Bathes Tale, and, if we consider the lines 

of Aureola, the Fairy Queen, in Elvetham (where see notes), the latter 

source seems probable ; while the burlesque figure of Sir Tophas follows, 

closely though not obviously, the main lines of Chaucer's Sir Thopas 

(see notes on the play). And further, much proverbial wisdom, though 

found in the intervening collection of that evident Chaucer-lover, John 

Heywood, may have been taken by Lyly direct from the older poet; 

among such I note Memphio's remark in Mother Bombie, i. 1. 73-5, 

which may be reminiscent of the Wife of Bathes Prologue D. 278-80, 

' dropping houses, and eek smoke, | And chyding wyves, maken men 

to flee I Out of hir owene hous' ; and Rixula's proverb about the ' gray 

goose in the lake' in the same play, iii. 4. 13-4, is quoted by the same 

communicative lady D. 269-70 ; while that about the cripple in Euph. ii. 

92 1. 8 and Gall. iv. 1. 46 occurs in Troylus and Criseyde, iv. 1458, from 

which poem, rather than from Boccaccio's Eilostrato, Lyly probably derived 

his knowledge of that purely mediaeval tale, alluded to in Euph. i. 219 1.11 

' Troylus was to faithfull to Crsessida.' For the suggestions about the 

names Peter and Robin, the Astronomer, and the smoke I am indebted to 

Professor Littledale of University College, Cardiff. Much else might no 

doubt be collected by exhaustive search. 

NOTE V.—Even now the tale of Lyly's productions is not quite 

exhausted. I find it necessary to include (vol. iii. 427) some amazing verses 

which he chose to entitle The Trivmphs of Trophes, and to announce as 

written' In Saphic verse of Iubiles,' but the irregularities of which it is impossible 

to adjust to any metrical scheme, classical or other. In tone and style 

these dreadful lines are an anticipation of the Whip and Mar-Martine, 

his claim to which they somewhat strengthen ; for, bad as these Trivmphs 

are, they exhibit a good deal of classical learning, and a verification of 

the references I have inserted opposite 11. 15,21,71,108, 113-4 (especially), 

will, I believe, allay all doubts of his authorship. I take it that the 

publication was unauthorized, and that the ' L. L' of the signature at 

BOND X D d


the end is the piratical publisher's misreading for I. L. of the MS. copy: 

had Lyly meant to publish them, he would probably have put his name 

on the title-page rather than * by a Courtier/ The lines were occasioned, 

of course, by the discovery of Babington's plot in 1586, fourteen of the 

conspirators therein having been condemned and executed before Mary 

herself was brought to trial in the autumn. She is referred to in stanza 8 

as 'Romish lesabell' and ' the onlie Circes'; while in stanza 17 Elizabeth 

is designated' Cynthia,' as when opposed to Tellus (=Mary) in Endimion, 

a play written I believe in the previous year and performed on the Feb. 2 

preceding this plot (see vol. iii. p. 11).


Dd2


INTRODUCTION 

THE Entertainments I claim for Lyly are the following :— 

(i) A few isolated speeches or poems, all (except the Ode) probably 

delivered at the Tiltyard, Whitehall, on the occasion of one or 

other of the anniversaries of the Queen's accession, Nov. 17 : 

among them the famous ' sonnet' hitherto assigned to Peele, 

1590, and a speech by the Earl of Cumberland, "1600. 

(2) Speeches at Theobalds (Gardener and Molecatcher) 1591 

(3) „ „ Cowdray on the Queen's Progress . „ 

(4) „ „ Elvetham „ „ 

(5) „ „ Quarrendon „ „ . 1592 

(6) „ „ Bisham, Sudeley and Rycote „ . „ ' 

(7) „ ,, Harefield Place „ ,, . 1602 

(8) (Doubtful) a slight share in the shows at the King of Denmark's 

visit in 1606, especially one .of a shepherd and 

shepherdess at Fleet Street Conduit, of which only a song 

and some reported details survive. 

Besides these, as already stated in the Biographical Appendix, 

I think it probable that he was whole or part author of other shows 

and perhaps even of one or two plays, now lost. For detailed arguments 

in support of his claim to those here printed I must refer the 

reader to the Notes in each case. Here I will only say, generally, 

that his position after 1588 in the Revels Office and that of Tentes and 

Toyles—especially if he held the post of Clerk-Controller, to which 

in the case of his predecessor, Edward Buggyn, had been attached 

the production of designs for masques—indicates him as a person to 

whom noblemen wishing to amuse the Queen might naturally apply 

for aid; and that the devotion of at least a portion of time to such 

work mitigates the intrinsically improbable sterility of the last fifteen 

years of his life. The style, too, throughout these shows is 

thoroughly Lylian, abounding in puns, alliteration and the perpetual 

antithetic balance characteristic of Euphues, to a degree unexhibited 

by any of his imitators, though the prose of Nicholas Breton some-


times makes a near approach to it. Doubtless in the latest instance, 

the Harefield Entertainment, the euphuistic characteristics are a 

good deal modified; but this is no more than we should naturally 

expect, and a useful external proof of his connexion with the Harefield 

show is supplied by the occurrence of his name in the full 

accounts of expenses incurred on that occasion preserved in the 

Egerton Papers (cf. Notes). Cowdray is specially reminiscent of 

Endimion, which, as it was published in 1591, Lyly may have been 

revising about the same time; Elvetham is premonitory of The 

Woman in the Moone some two years later; Bisham recalls Midas 

(published in the same year 1592); Sudeley and Quarrendon, Loves 

Metamorphosis ; while Quarrendon and Rycote renew the old themes 

of Euphues. To exhibit the detailed connexion by full quotation, 

either here or in the Notes, would swell my already swollen volumes 

to an impracticable bulk. I must perforce trust to the reader's 

mastery of the characteristics of Lyly's style as set forth in the 

Essay on Euphuism, and to his diligence in verifying the references 

sown pretty thickly along the margin of the text, which will 

show that the marked resemblance of style is abundantly confirmed 

by reproduction of Lyly's favourite phrases and sentiments, of which 

the new matter is sometimes simply a mosaic. 

For a taste, let him take, in the Sonet, the allusion to bees in 

helmets, and the antithesis of psalms and sonnets, found also in 

Euphues and Campaspe: in the Gardener's speech the exact likeness 

of the legend on the box to the doggrel oracles of Mother Bombie: 

in Cowdray, let him compare the Angler's speech, pp. 427-8, with 

Epiton's mention of a Western barge and angling in the same 

breath as types of tediousness (Endim. iv. 2. 53-7), with Floscula's 

remark {Endim. i. 2. 75-7), ' you shal finde that loue gotten with 

witch-craft is as vnpleasant as fish taken with medicines vnwholsome,' 

and with Euphues, ii. 143 1. 14 'the Camill first troubleth 

the water before he drinke': in Elvetham let him note the lines of 

the scroll ' Aoniis prior & Dims,' &c, p. 445, reproduced, with the 

same inversion of them, in The Woman, iii. 1. 111-5 : in Quarrendon, 

p. 462 1.16, the loose article of dress to be worn by a loose character 

(cf. Helen in Euph. p. 179, above): in 'Bisham, p. 473, the proverb ' 

'two Pigeons may bee caught with one beane' (from Euph. ii. 1731. 23): 

in Sudeley, p. 477 1.19 'a black sheepe is a perilous beast' from End. ii. 

2.154: in Harefield, p. 49411. 1-7, the likening of the Queen's visit to 

the broad bounty of the sun as in Euph. ii. 39 11. 5-7 ' a bright Sunne

4o6 ENTERTAINMENTS 

shineth in euery corner, which maketh not the beames worse, but the 

place better.' Those who will look up the marginal references will 

find numbers of such cases ; there are others of which I am conscious, 

but which elude my search; and, where they are not numerous, 

there is some other cogent argument, e.g. in Quarrendon, where 

it appears to me wellnigh impossible that any but Lyly can have 

written the dialogue between Constancy and Liberty. 

In five cases, those of Cowdray, Elvetham, Bisham, Sudeley and 

Rycote, the speeches are preserved for us in contemporary -printed 

quartos (the last three, in one), with the actual editing of which Lyly 

was not, I believe, directly concerned. The Printer's mention of 

'loose papers' in his address prefixed to Bisham Sud. Ryc, indicates 

the literary form in which Lyly left his work; but, from the close 

correspondence of the speeches with the details of action given in 

the. narrative in Elvetham, as well as from the absence of proper 

stage-directions in Quarrendon, we should argue that he was not 

only the deviser but, as with his plays, the practical stage-manager of 

all these shows, to whom the various hosts communicated their 

wishes at the outset, especially in regard to any presents of jewellery, 

&c, to be introduced. The Theobalds, Quarrendon and Harefield 

speeches have been printed within the last century from contemporary 

MSS. On the question of Lyly's anonymity in all of 

them I have made one or two remarks in the Biographical Appendix, 

above, pp. 382-3. 

The last two (doubtful) songs are from a quarto tract in the British 

Museum, of which I print the title and some long extracts. It is 

' written to a gentleman in the northern parts'; and its clumsy longwinded 

construction of sentences quite excludes the idea of Lyly's 

authorship. Neither song appears in Henry Roberts' account of the 

visit as given by Nichols (Progresses of James I, ii. 54-69). 

Taken altogether these shows form a body of work of some 

importance in the history of Pastoral in England. The certainty that 

much similar work, not always offered to royalty, has perished leaves 

us in some uncertainty as to Lyly's models; but he adheres with 

considerable fidelity to the lines laid down by Gascoigne and Sidney, 

whose Princely Pleasures at Kenilworth (pub. 1576), and Lady of 

May (given at Wanstead-1578) 1 are the earliest and only preceding 

1 It should be noted that The Lady of May was not printed till it appeared at 

the end of the 1613 ed. of Arcadia; but Lyly might have seen it in MS. or even 

witnessed the performance.


examples extant. The idea of such pastoral, with its introduction 

of mythological characters, was no doubt derived from Italy; though 

it has been well pointed out that pastoral shows form only a natural 

development of the written eclogue. They were, indeed, pretty sure 

to appear in any country where classical culture and a native poetry 

already existed 1 . In a most interesting and useful article in Modern 

Language Notes for April, 1899, Mr. A. H. Thorndike of the Western 

Reserve University gathers together from Fleay's Chronicle, Nichols' 

Progresses, and elsewhere, all that is known on this subject. He 

mentions the lost ' Mask of Wylde men,' performed at a marriage at 

Greenwich 1573 2 , as the earliest indication of pastoral; he recalls 

how Gascoigne, at Kenilworth, introduced a ' Humbre Salvagio,' 

also Pan, Sylvanus god of woods, Diana with nymphs, hunting-horns, 

and allegorical characters, such as Deep Desire, speaking from trees 

to which they had been transformed; and how Sidney, in 1578, first 

gave us a distinct pastoral setting, exhibiting a singing match between 

a forester and a shepherd for the May Lady, and further 

introducing comic elements and native figures in Rombus the village 

pedant, Lalus the old shepherd, and the ' honest mans wife of the 

country,' alongside the more ideal and conventional figures of 

Therion and Espiles. The resumption of the Queen's progresses 

in 1591 gave a fresh impulse to such composition ; and Mr. Thorndike, 

combating the notion that pastoral was a new thing in the 

hands of Daniel (Queens Arcadia, 1605), or Fletcher, summarizes 

some established features of it as follows:—' Before 1600 the 

chastity-motive, the setting of shepherds and hunters, the story of 

unrequited love, the singing-contest, the hunting-party with sounding 

horns 3 —all these had become material of the pastoral drama. 

Some characters, too, such as the satyr-type, the rude forester, and 

the venerable shepherd, were pretty familiar. . . . The mixture of 

pastoral with native comic characters is perhaps more distinctively 

1 See Note on Italian Influence, vol. ii. pp. 473 sqq. 

3 Fleay's Chronicle, ii. 341. The Revels Accounts also mention in connexion 

with the same Christmas, 1573-4, ' the foresters mask,' pp. 53-4, and 'the hunters 

Mask on New yeres Nighte,' p. 59; and on or about Dec. 23, 1574, ' the pedlers 

Mask,' pp. 87-8; while on the first Sunday of the New Year, 1578-9, was shown at 

Richmond 'A Pastorell or historie of a Greeke Maide,' p. 125; and in 1584 

' A pastorall of Phillyda et Choryn ... on S t . Stephens daie at night at 

Grenew ch 

8 Elsewhere Mr. Thorndike adds the Echo-dialogue, rival discussion of hunters' 

and shepherds' lives, writing verses on a tree, celebration of a festival by nymphs, 

and transformation of a maiden to a tree. He generalizes from Lyly's plays and 

the Maydes Met., as well as from the shows I print.

408 ENTERTAINMENTS 

an English development. It may indeed possibly be taken as an 

evidence .of the influence of contemporary public plays, though to 

some extent this mixture was anticipated in Spenser's and Barclay's 

eclogues. Pastoral poetry, at any rate, anticipated the pastoral 

drama in the introduction of contemporary satire' (col. 235). It 

does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Thorndike that Lyly, the 

chief author of 'public plays' before 1590, was also the author of 

most of the shows he discusses; nor does he notice that Melebeus 

and Tyterus in Gallaihea (before 1585), and Pan in Midas (1589) 

have already exhibited something of the same comic-pastoral that 

appears in the Cutter of Cotswold in Sudeley (cf. the Angler and 

Netter at Cowdray, and the treatment of Silvanus in Elvetham). 

To say truth Lyly, into whose hands the tradition passes about 

1590, though he introduces great variety into the genre which he 

perpetuates and polishes, does not add any very distinctive typical 

feature, save perhaps that of allegorical figures, Constancy, Inconstancy, 

Place and Time. Freshness and spontaneity, an appropriate 

naivete hardly to be expected from one who had already written 

seven plays of much internal resemblance, this they may all, I think, 

claim : one may be moderately grateful for the Gardener, the Angler, 

the Cotswold shepherds, and Joan the dairy-maid, while the dialogue 

between Constancy and Inconstancy is in the author's most ingenious 

vein ; otherwise their literary merit is not great, chiefly because 

the kind is too slight to allow of much design or development of an 

issue. And what literary merit there is, is marred for the modern 

reader by a quality perhaps inseparable from the circumstances 

of presentation—the flattery, namely, by which they are marked, in 

greater degree and grosser kind than was visible in the plays; 

flattery that does not stick at the attribution of divine honours to 

Elizabeth in her own person, not merely in that of Cynthia or Diana, 

e.g. 'Elizabetha deus nobis haec otia fecit' (Cowdray, p. 426); and 

cf. Quarrendon, pp. 465, 469. Excusable and interesting as a feature 

of this flattery are the references to the Armada in the Gardener's 

speech, p. 418, Cowdray, p. 425, Elvetham, pp. 442-3, Quarrendon, 

p. 467 1. 24, and to France and Flanders in Bisham, p. 475 11. 12-3, 

Rycote, pp. 486, 488. 

These shows are also useful as affording, in the large body of 

verse which they contain, confirmation of his authorship of the songs 

in the plays. Two of those in Elvetham have been attributed, not 

I think with absolute certainty, to Watson and Breton respectively—


the second being the exceedingly charming and dainty 'Phyllida and 

Coridon'; but there is'no reason to doubt the rest (with some reservation 

in regard to Harefield), which often bear his visible imprint, 

e. g. the camomile and the palm in Cowdray, p. 42611.34-5. Not much 

of this verse can claim any merit, though five of the songs found 

a place in the best poetical anthology of the reign, Englands Helicon, 

1600, and the Latin oration of welcome to Elvetham is better than 

other Latin verse by Lyly ; but taken all together, and coupled with 

a rather marked resemblance in Sudeley, it somewhat strengthens 

without, I think, at all finally establishing, Lyly's claim to the 

Maydes Metamorphosis 1; and has induced me to include in vol. iii 

as possibly his a certain proportion of other unsigned lyrical work 

selected from the anthologies, song-books and MSS. 

1 See also above, pp. 383-4.

SPEECHES AND VERSES AT THE 

TILT-YARD 

1590—1600. 

A SONET 1 . 

AT THE TILT-YARD; NOV. 17, 1590. 

(In William Segar's Honor Military, and Ciuill, 1602 fol. Bk. iii. ch. 54, the 

following description of this occasion is given : ' Here will we remember also . . . 

that these annuall exercises in armes, solemnized the 17. day of Nouember, were 

first begun and occasioned by the right vertuous and honourable Sir Henry Lea, 

Master of her highnesse Armorie, and now deseruingly Knight of the Most Noble 

Order, who, of his great zeale and earnest desire to eternize the glory of her 

maiestie's court, in the beginning of her happy reigne, voluntarily vowed (vnlesse 

infirmity, age, or other accident did impeach him), during his life, to present himselfe 

at the tilt armed, the day aforesayd yeerely, there to performe, in honor of 

her sacred maiestie, the promise he formerly made . . . though true it is, that the 

author of that custome (being now by age ouertaken) in the 33. yeere of her 

maiesties reigne resigned and recommended that office vnto the right noble George 

Earle of Cumberland. The ceremonies of which assignation were publiquely 

performed in presence of her maiestie, her ladies and nobilitie, also an infinite 

number of people beholding the same, as followeth. 

On the 17 day of Nouember, Anno 1590. this honourable Gentleman together 

with the Earle of Cumberland, hauing first performed their seruice in Armes, 

presented themselues vnto her Highnesse, at the foot of the staires vnder her Gallery 

window in the Tilt yard at Westminster, where at that time her Maiestie did sit, 

accompanied with the Vicount Turyn Ambassador of France, many Ladies, and 

the chiefest Nobilitie. ' ^ 

Her Majesty beholding these armed knights comming toward her, did suddenly 

heare a musicke so sweete and secret, as euery one thereat greatly marueiled. And 

hearkening to that excellent melodie, the earth as it were opening, there appeared 

a Pauilion made of white Taffata, containing eight score elles, being in proportion 

like vnto the sacred Temple of the Virgins Vestall. This Temple seemed to consist 

vpon pillars of Pourferry, arched like vnto a Church, within it were many Lampes 

burning. Also, on the one side there stood an Altar couered with cloth«of gold, 

and thereupon two waxe candles burning in rich candlesticks, vpon the Altar also 

were layd certaine Princely presents, which after by three Virgins were presented 

1 A SONET] from the Drummondcopy of Peele's ' Polyhymnia,' 1590, 4 0 , in the 

Univ. Libr.t Edinburgh. Also as here in John Dowland's ' First Booke of Songes 

or Ayres,'1597, fol., No. 18.

AT THE TILT-YARD 411 

vnto her Maiestie. Before the doore of this Temple stood a crouned Pillar, 

embraced by an Eglantine tree, whereon there hangd a Table; and therein written 

(with letters of gold) this prayer following. 

ELZAE, &c. | Pix, potenti, faelicissimae; virgini, | fidei, pads, nobilitatis 

vindici, | cui Deus, astra, virtus, | summa deuouerunt | omnia. | Post tot annos, tot 

triumphos, | animam ad pedes positurus | tuos, | sacra senex | affixit arma. | Vitam 

quietam, imperium, aemam | seternam, reternam | precatur tibi, | sanguine redempturus 

suo. | Ultra columnas Herculis | columna moueatur tua. | Corona 

superet coronas omnes, | ut quam coclum faelicissime | nascenti coronam dedit, | 

beatissima moriens reportes coelo. | Summe, Sancte, AEterne, | audi, exaudi, | 

Deus. | 

The musicke aforesayd, was accompanied with these verses, pronounced and 

sung by M. Hales her Maiesties seruant, a Gentleman in that Arte excellent, and 

for his voice both commendable and admirable. [Here follows an imperfect 

version of the ' Sonnet' below.] 

The gifts which the vestall maydens presented unto her maiesty, were these: 

a vaile of white exceeding rich and curiously wrought; a cloke and safegard set 

with buttons of gold, and on them were graucn emprezes of excellent deuise; in 

the loope of euery button was a noble-mans badge, fixed to a pillar richly 

embrodered. . . . 

— these presents and prayer being with great reuerence deliuered into her 

maiesties owne hands, and he himselfe disarmed, offered vp his armour at the foot 

of her maiesties Crowned Pillar; and kneeling vpon his knees, presented the Earle 

of Cumberland, humbly beseeching she would be pleased to accept him for her 

knight, to continue the yeerely exercises aforesaid. Her majesty gratiously 

accepting of that offer, this aged knight armed the earle, and mounted him vpon 

his horse. That being done, he put vpon his owne person a side coat of blacke 

veluet pointed vnder the arme, and couered his head (in liew of an helmet) with 

a buttoned cap of the countrey fashion. 

After all these ceremonies, for diuers dayes hee ware vpon his cloake a crowne 

embrodered, with a certaine motto or deuice, but what his intention therein was, 

himselfe best knoweth. 

Mow to conclude the matter of assignation, you shall vnderstand that this noble 

gentleman, by her maiesties expresse commandement, is yerely (without respect 

vnto his age) personally present at these military exercises, there to see, suruey, 

and as one most carefull and skilfull to direct them; for indeed his vertue and 

valour in arms is such as deserueth to command.') 

His Golden lockes Time hath to Siluer turn'd, 

0 Time too swift, 6 Swiftnesse neuer ceasing! 

His Youth gainst Time and Age hath euer spurn'd, 

But spurn'd in vain, Youth waineth by increasing. 

Beauty, StrOgth, Youth, are flowers, but fading seen, 

Dutie, Faith, Loue, are roots, and euer greene. 

I, 3 His] My Segar 2 6] and Seg. 3 Time . . . euer] age, and 

age at youth hath Seg. 5 Youth... seen] and youth, flowers fading beene 

Seg. 6 and before Loue Seg. 

(Endim.ii, 

3.30

(Etiph. ii. 

209 1. 36; 

Camp. iv. 

3.8) 

(Euph. i. 

224 I.5, 

321 l 38, 

&c.) 

{End. v. 3. 

170; iii. 4. 

52,118; 

Saph. v. 3; 

L.M. 

passim) 


His Helmet now shall make a hiue for Bees, 

And Louers sonets turne to holy Psalmes: 

A man at Armes must now serue on his knees, 

And feede on praiers, which are Age his almes. 

But though from Court to Cottage he depart, 

His Saint is sure of his vnspotted heart. 

And when he saddest sits in homely Cell, 

Heele teach his swaines this Caroll for a Song,— 

Bless'd be the heartes that wish my Soueraigne well, 

Curs'd be the soules that thinke her any wrong! 

Goddess, allow this aged man his right, 

To be your Beads-man now, that was your Knight. 

A CARTELL FOR A CHALLENG. 

(A Herald reads) 

To all the Noble Chosen and Hopefull Gentlemen, in this most 15 

notable Assemble; The strange forsaken Knightes send greet 

ing, &c.:— 

Whereas the Question hath ben long and often, and yett resteth 

doubtfull and undiscussed, whether that w ch Menne call Loue be 

good or euill; And that it is manifest that there be manie woorthye 20 

Knightes, in this p'sence, to whom Loue is most delightfull, and his 

lawes no paynes; I bring this scedule, to signifie to all the gentlemen 

here, that loue Armes, and list to defend this Cause, that there be 

three armed and unknowen Knightes, here at hande, of one minde & 

diuers fortune, that; w th stroke of Arme and dynt of sworde, be come 25 

to maintaine against all that will defende the Contrary, that Loue is 

worse than hate, his Subiectes worse than slaues, and his Rewarde 

worse than naught: And that there is a Ladie that scornes Loue and 

his power, of more vertue and greater bewtie than all the Amorouse 

Dames that be at this day in the worlde. 30 

1, 6 (Ins) His] My Segar 2 sonets turne Songbook: songs shall turne 

Seg.: Sonets turn'd Polyhymnia 3 serue] sit Seg. 4 pray'rs that are 

old ages almes Seg. (ages also Songbook) 5 But though] And so Seg. he] 

I Seg. 7 I sadly sit Seg. 8 I'le teach my Seg. 9 wish] thinke Seg. 

10 soule Songbook her any] to doe her Seg. 11 allow] vouchsafe Seg. 

13 This and the two following speeches are taken from Masques: Performed 

before Queen Elizabeth, 1820, 4 0 (ed. W. Hamper)

AT THE TILT-YARD 413 

SIR HENRY LEE'S CHALLENGE BEFORE THE SHAMPANIE. 

(A Herald reads) 

There is a strange Knight that warres against hope and fortune, 

who, ouerturned with griefe, hath cast himself into the Crewe of 

5 Care : And to maintaine his passion, as an enemie to all that Hue in" 

delight, determineth to be here forthwith ; and hath sent mee to tell 

the Procurer of this Assemble, that under the hue of a grene (suit) 

is couered that unfortunate Carcas that scornes at others Joyes and 

weepes at all delightes. And knowing that there be manie Seruants 

10 to Hope, and Frendes to Fortune, (whom he treadeth under foote), 

meaneth to maintaine, as farr as his posting horse will giue him leaue, 

that the Seruants of Dispaire haue asmuch Vertue, and cary asmuch 

Goodwill to the guide of his Troupe, as those that serue the other 

turning and most trustless Goddes. 

15 THE SUPPLICATION OF THE OWLD KNIGHT. 

In humble wise, sheweth unto your honorable Lordshipps, and the 

woorthie Gentelmen of this noble Assembell, and serveres of this 

English Holiday, or rather Englandes Happie Daye; A poore faithfull 

feeble Knight, yet once (thowe unwoorthie) your fellowe in 

20 Armes, and first Celebrator, in this kinde, of this sacred memorie of 

that blessed reigne, which shall leaue to this land an eternall monument 

of Godes fauoure, and greate glorie. That whereas Age, the 

Foe of Loue and Armes, hath thus disabled me (as you see) to performe 

with my handes the office of my harte, and hath turned me 

25 from a staffe to run with, to a staffe to rest on, making me a glasse 

for Joylite to looke in, since all strength and bewtie upon Earthe, 

and whatsoeuer we most lyke and striue for, muste alter and end, 

eyther soddenlie, by chaunce, or, certainely, by small contynuance: 

It may please you of your honorable favoures and curtesies, in regard 

30 of my past seruice, and present humble sute, to accept to your fellowshippe, 

in his fathers rome, this oneley sonne of mine, young, and 

honest, and toward, though I say it; thus shall you incurrage a young 

gentelmanne in verteouse exercises, that is labouring the waies of 

Hope, comfort an aged Knight, worne and weried with thoughtes 

35 and trauailes, drawing to his ende, and binde him with his force, and 

me with my prayre, to do you euer the seruice wee are able. And 

7 [suit] suppl. Hamper

(End. i. 1. 

10) 

{End. i. 1. 

36-58; 

Harefield, 

P-499 

11. 1-2) 

(Harefield, 

l>• 493 

ll 18-9) 


further, least I forfait my tenure (which I would not for my lyfe) of 

this daies honoring her excellent Ma ie , being not able in person to 

paye with the launce this rent of my seruice, I must beseeche somme 

noble or woorthie gentelman, that is most lyke to haue next access 

to her sacred persone, lowlie to present this little from me, as the 5 

yearely fyne of his faith: which no cause shall make light, and no 

tyme can make less. So the high and mercifull preseruer of all 

thinges best preserue hir that thus preserues us all, and send you, 

most noble Gentelmen, and all that be woorth anie thing, best bodies 

to seme her, best hartes to loue hir, and best happes to honor her, 10 

and her most gratiouse Ma ie the longest life, the most felicitie, the 

heauens did euer giue, or the earth did euer take. Amen. Amen. 

AT THE EARL OF CUMBERLAND'S SHEW ON HORSEBACK ; 

MAY I, 1600. 

ODE. 15 

Of Cynthia. 

Th' ancient Readers of Heauens Booke, 

Which with curious eye did looke 

Into Natures story; 

All things vnder Cynthia tooke 20 

To bee transitory. 

This the learned only knew, 

But now all men flnde it true, 

Cynthia is descended; 

With bright beames and heauenly hew, 25 

And lesser starres attended. 

Landes and Seas shee rules below, 

Where things change, and ebbe, and flowe, 

Spring, waxe olde, and perish; 

Only Time which all doth mowe, 30 

Her alone doth cherish. 

Times yong howres attend her still, 

And her Eyes and Cheekes do fill, 

With fresh youth and beautie: 

15 From Davison's Poetical Rapsody, 1602. It may be by Sir John Davies : 

cf. p. 519.

AT THE .TILT-YARD 415 

All her louers olde do grow, 

But their hartes, they do not so 

In their Loue and duty. 

This Song was sung before her sacred 

5 Maiestie at a shew on horsebacke, 

wherwith the right Honorable the 

Earle of Cumberland presented her 

Highnesse on Maie day last (1600). 

AT THE TILT-YARD; NOV. 17, 1600. 

10 A Copie of my Lord of COMBRLANDE'S Speeche to y e QUEENE, 

upon y e 17 day of November, 1600. 

This knight (Fairest and Happiest of all Ladies) removyng from 

castell to castell, now rowleth up and downe, in open feild, a field of 

shaddow, having no other m'rs but night-shade, nor gathering anie (Vol. iii. p.. 

15 mosse but about his own harte. This mallancholly, or rather des- 497) 

perat retirdnes, sommons his memorie to a repetition of all his 

accions, thoughtes, misfortunes, in the depth of which discontented 

contentednes upon one leaf he writes, utiliter consenesco, and musters 

up all his spirite to its wonted corradge: but in the same minut he 

20 kisseth night-shade, and imbraceth it, saying, Solanum Solamen. 

Then, having no companye but himselfe, thus he talkes w'th himselfe: 

that he hath made ladders for others to clymbe, and his feet nayled ( Mid. ii 

to the ground not to-stirr. That he is lyke them that built y e ancker 1. 96) 

to save others, and themselves to be drownd. That when he hath 

25 outstript manie in desert, he is tript upp by Envy, untill those overtake 

him that undertooke nothing. He, on the confidence of unspotted 

honour, leveld all his accions to nurse these twinnes, Labor (Euph. ii. 

4 1. 3, 5 1. 

. "and Dutie, not knowinge which of these was eldest, both running 

fast, but neither formost. Then, casting his eyes to heaven, to 

30 wonder at Cinthia's brightness, and to looke out his own unfortunate 

starr: with deepe syghes he breathes out a twofold wishe, that the 

one may never waine while the world waxeth ; that the other may be 

erring, not fixed. Howe the two haith troubled y e , sacred eares, mine 

10 As printed inWhitaker's History of Craven, 1805, 4 0 (3rd ed. 1878, ed.Morant, 

P- 355), from MSS.of the Cumberland family at Bolton, Yorkshire 14 m'rs] 

i.e. mistress 23 them] him Whiiakerfrom MS,


with glowing and tingling, are witnesses; but they shall confess that 

their eyes shall prove their being lyers, being as farr from judgm't as 

they are from honnor. There is no such thing as night-shade; for 

wher can there be miste or darkenes where you are, whose beames 

wrappes up cloudes as whirlewindes dust ? Night-shade is falne off, 5 

shrinking into y e center of the earth, as not daring to showe blackenes 

before your brightnes. I cannot excuse my knightes error, nor 

care that he knows it, to thinke he could cover himselfe obscurely in 

anie desolate retirdness wher your highnes beautie and vertue could 

not find him out. These Northeren thoughtes, that measures honnor 10 

by the acre, and would have his crest a plase, he controwles so far in 

his truer honnor, that (he) contempes them. He now grounds all 

his accions neither upon hopes, counsell, nor experience, he disdaines 

envy, and scornes ingratitude. Judgem't shall arme his 

patience; patience confirme his knowledge, which is that, yourselfe 15 

being perfection, knowes measures number and tyme to cause 

favour wher it shold, and when you please, being onely constant and 

wyse in waiging with true stediness both the thoughtes of all men, 

and their affections ; upon w'ch he soe relies that whatsoever happen 

to him you are still yourselfe (wonder and happynes), to w'ch his 20 

eyes, thoughts, and actions are tyed, w'th such an indissolvable knott, 

that neather death, nor tyme, that triumphs after death, shall or can 

unloose it. Is it not, as I have often tould ye, that, after he had 

throwne his land into y e sea, y e sea would cast him on the lande for 

a wanderer? He that spines nothing but hopes shall weave up 25 

nothing but repentance. Let him cast his accompts sinc he was first 

wheeld about with his will wheele; and what can he reckon, save 

only he is so manie years elder ? Haith not he taken his fall, wher 

others take their rysing, he having y e Spanish proverbe at his backe 

that should be sticked to his harte, " Adelante los Abenstados." 30 

" Let them hold the purses with y e mouth downeward that hath filled 

them with mouth upwards." He may well entertaine a shade for his 

m'rs that walkes in the world himselfe like a shaddow, embracing 

names instead of thinges, dreames for trouthes, blind prophesais for 

seeing verities. It becomes not me to dispute of his courses; but 35 

yet none shall hinder me from wondring to see him that is not to be, 

and yet to be that never was. If ye thinke his body too straighte for 

his hearte, ye shall find y e worlde wyde enoughe for his body. 

12 [he] suggesled Whitdker 16 knowes] knaves MS. as reported by Whitaker

ON THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO THEOBALDS, 

MAY, I59I. 

THE GARDENER'S SPEECH. 

MOST fortunate and fair queen, on whose heart Wisdom hath laid 

5 her crown, and in whose hands Justice hath left her balance, 

vouchsafe to hear a country controversy, for that there is as great 

equity in defending of poor men's onions as of rich men's lands. 

At Pymms, some four miles hence, the youngest son of this 

honourable old man (whom God bless with as many years and 

io virtues as there be of him conceived hopes (and) wishes!) devised 

a plot for a garden, as methought, and in a place unfit for pleasure, 

being overgrown with thistles and turned up with moles, and besides 

so far from the house that, in my country capacity, a pound had 

been meeter than a paradise. What his meaning was I durst not 

15 inquire, for sunt animis cckstibus tree; but what my labours were (Sud. p. 

I dare boast of. 

478) 

The moles destroyed and the plot levelled, I cast it into four 

quarters. In the first I framed a maze, not of hyssop and thyme, but (Euph. i. 

that which maketh time itself wither with wondering; all the Virtues, 1871.30 ) 

20 all the Graces, all the Muses winding and wreathing about your 

majesty, each contending to be chief, all contented to be cherished: 

this not of potherbs, but flowers, and of flowers fairest and sweetest; {Camp. 

for in so heavenly a maze, whicn astonished all earthly thought's prol.1l.27; 

promise, the Virtues were done in roses, flowers fit for the twelve 2721.29) 

25 Virtues, who have in themselves, as we gardeners have observed, (Bish. p.. 

above an hundred; the Grace(s) of pansies partly-coloured, but in 474roses 

one stalk, never asunder, yet diversely beautified; the Muses of nine tine)) 

several flowers, being of sundry natures, yet all sweet, all sovereign. 

These mingled in a maze, and brought into such shapes as poets 

30 and painters use to shadow, made mine eyes dazzle with the 

shadow, and all my thoughts amazed to behold the bodies Then 

3 These two speeches are fiom Dyce's ed. of Peek's Works. See note 8 Qy. ? 

Mimms Dyce: see note 10 [and] inserted Dyce 26 Grace[s] so emended Dyce 

BOND I E e

4x8 ENTERTAINMENTS 

( Tilt-yd. was I commanded to place an arbour all of eglantine, in which my 

P;410' master's conceit outstripped my cunning: 'Eglantine,' quoth he, 

474;' vol. ' I most honour, and it hath been told me that the deeper it is 

Hi.; The rooted in the ground, the sweeter it smelleth in the flower, making 

Bee, st. 6) , , , • , , , . , 

it ever so green that the sun of Spam at the hottest cannot parch it. 5 

As he was telling me more, I, intending my work more than his 

words, set my spade with all force into the earth, and, at the first, 

hit upon the box. This ratcatcher (as children do when any thing 

is found) cried, 'Half!' which I denying, (he) claimed all, 

because he killed the moles, and if the moles had not been de-10 

stroyed, there had been no garden ; if no garden, no digging; if no 

{Cowdray, digging, no box found. At length this box bred boxes betwixt us; 

p. 4 2 4 1.28 ) till wery of these black and blue judges, we determined to appeal 

to your majesty, into whose hands we both commit the box and 

the cause, (I) hoping that this weasel-monger, who is no better 15 

than a cat in a house or a ferret in a cony-gat, shall not dissuade 

your majesty from a gardener whose art is to make walks pleasant 

for princes, to set flowers, cast knots, graft trees, to do all things 

that may bring pleasure and profit; and so to give him one gird for 

all, as much odds as there is between a woodcleaver and a car- 20 

penter, so great difference in this matter is between the molecatcher 

and the gardener. 

WRITTEN ABOUT THE BOX. 

(Eupk. ii. I was a giant's daughter of this isle, 

13) Turn'd to a mole by the Queen of Corn: 25 

My jewel I did bury by a wile, 

Again never from the earth to be torn, 

(cf.M. Till a virgin had reigned thirty-three years, 

oracles,vol. Which shall be but the fourth part of her years. . 

iii. pp. 196, 

203-5,216 THE MOLECATCHER'S SPEECH. fo 

Good lady, and the best that ever I saw, or any shall, give me 

leave to tell a plain tale, in which there is no device, but desert 

enough. I went to seek you at Greenwich; and there it was told 

me that the queen was gone from the court; I wondered that the 

body should start from the shadow. Next was I pointed to Hack- 35 

ney; there they said the court was gone into the country: I had 

thought to have made hue and cry, thinking that he that stole fire 

8 the] qy.? this Dyce 9 [he] Dyci s insertion 15 [I] Dyce s insertion •

AT THEOBALDS 419 

from heaven had stolen our heaven from earth. At the last I met 

with a post who told me you were at Theobald's: I was glad, for that 

next your majesty I honour the owner of that house, wishing that 

his virtues may double his years and yours treble. 

5 I cannot discourse of knots and mazes: sure I am that the ground 

was so knotty that the gardener was amazed to see it; and as easy 

had it been, if I had not been, to make a shaft of a cammock as (Euph. i. 

a garden of that croft. I came not to claim any right for myself, I 9 6 l.1,an 

but to give you yours; for that, had the bickering been between 

to us, there should have needed no other justice of peace than this, 

to have made him a mittimus to the first gardener that ever was, 

Adam. 

I went to lawyers to ask counsel, who made law like a plaice, 

a black side and a white; ' for,' said one, ' it belongeth to the lord 

15 of the soil, by the custom of the manor.' ' Nay,' said the other, ' it 

is treasure trove.' ' What's that ?' quoth I. ' Marry, all money 

or jewels hidden in the earth are the queen's/ Noli me tangere: 

I. let go my hold, and desire your majesty that you will hold yours. 

Now, for that this gardener twitteth me with my vocation, I could 

20 prove it a mystery not mechanical, and tell the tale of the giant's 

daughter which was turned to a mole because she would eat fairer 

bread than is made of wheat, wear finer cloth than is made of wool, (Euph. i. 

drink neater wine than is made of grapes; why she was blind, and 

yet light of hearing; and how good clerks told me that moles in 

25 fields were like ill subjects in commonwealths, which are always (Cowd. p. 

4281. 23) 

turning up the place in which they are bred. But I will not trouble 

your majesty, but every day pray on my knees that all those that be 

heavers at your state may come to a mole's blessing,—a knock on (Camp. i. 

the pate and a swing on a tree. Now, madam, for this gardener, 1• l) 

30 command him to end his garder;, and, till his melancholy be past, 

let him walk in the alleys, and pick up worms like a lapwing. 

10 this] ' his molespade.' Marginal note in MS. {Dyci) 

E e 2

The 1 Speeches and 2 

HONORABLE 

Entertainment giuen to the Queenes 

MAIESTIE in Progresse, at Cowdrey in 

Sussex, by the right Honorable the 

Lord Montacute. 

l59l. 

LONDON 3 

Printed by Thomas Scarlet, and are to bee solde by 

William Wright, dwelling in PauJes Churchyard, 

neere to the French Schoole. 

15-91- 

EDITIONS—(i) (=Q) 1591 4° followed in this edition. Title as above. S leaves, the 

first blankly the second being the title-page with blanks verso, then A 3, A 4, B-B 4. 

No col. (In Br. Uus. under ' Broun, Anthony, Viscount Montagu'; press-mark 

C. 33. d. 11.) 

(2.) 1591 4 0 . Title cjuoted under (3). 

(3) Reprint of (2) in Nichols' 'Progresses,' 1788 [vol. ii),withfollg. title'.—The Honorable 

Entertainment given to the Queenes Majestie, in Progresse, at Cowdrey 

in Sussex, by the Right Honorable the Lord Montecute. 1591. Printed by 

Thomas Scarlet, and are to bee solde by William Wright, dwelling in Paules 

Churchyard, neere to the French Schoole. I591. It omits the three poems. 

(4.) Reprint of (2) in NicMs, Second Edition, 1823, vol. iii. pp. 90-6 Poems omitt. 

N. in footnotes includes both (3) and (4.), except where differentiated by date. 

Speeches and om. Nichols. 

LONDON om. N.

T 

THE HONORABLE 

Entertainment giuen to her Ma- 

iestie in Progresse at Cowdray in Sussex by the 

Lord Montecute Anno. 1591 

August, 14. 5 

He Queens MAIESTY came with a great traine to the right 

Honorable the Lorde Montacutes, vpon saterdaie being the 14 

daie of Auguste about eight of the clocke at night. Where vpon sight 

of her Maiestie, loud musicke sounded, which at her enteraunce on the 

bridge suddenly ceased. Then was a speech deliuered by a personage 10 

in armour, standing betweene two Porters, carued out of wood, he resembling 

the third: holding his club in one hand, and a key of golde in 

the other, as followeth. 

Saterday. 

The Porters Speech. 15 

(Camp. i. THe walks of Thebes were raised by Musicke: by musick these 

I. 3 1) are kept from falling. It was a prophesie since the first stone 

was layde, that these walls should shake, and the roofe totter, till 

the wisest, the fairest and most fortunate of all creatures, should by 

her first steppe make the foundation staid: and by the glaunce of her 20 

eyes make the Turret steddie. I hauc beene here a Porter mam'eyeeres, 

many Ladies haue entred passing amiable, many verie wise, none so 

happie. These my fellow Porters thinking there could bee none such, 

fell on sleepe, and so incurde the seconde curse of the prophesie, which 

(Bish. p. is, neuer againe to awake: Marke how they looke more likepostes then 25 

473 1• 33) Porters, reteining onlie their shapes, but depriued of their sences. I 

thought rather to cut off my eie liddes, then to winke till I saw the 

ende. And now it is: for the musick is at an end, this house immoue- 

5 14.] 18 N1788: 15 N 1823 6 Queens MAIESTY] Queene having 

dyned at Farnham N 7 Mountagues, on N 14] 15 N 14 

Saterday, August 15. N1823 23 such] so noble N

• AT COWDRAY 423 

able, your vertue immortall 0 miracle of Time, Natures glorie, (Bish. p. 

Fortunes Empresse, the worlds wonder! Soft, this is the Poets part, 475 ll.2-3; 

and not the Porters. I haue nothing to present but the crest of mine 44_5.;End 

office, this keie: Enter, possesse all, to whom the heauens have vouch- 1• 4- 36) 

5 safed all. As for the owner of this house, mine honourable Lord, his 

tongue is the keie of his heart: and his heart the locke of his soule. 

Therefore what he speakes you may constantlie beleeuc: which is, that 

in duetie and seruice to your Maiestie, he would be second to none: in 

praiengfor your happinesse, con all to anie. 

10 Tuus, 0 Regina, quod optas (Life,p.67) 

Explorarc fauor: huic iussa capessere fas est. 

Mundaie. 

oN Munday at 8. of the clocke in the morning, her Highnes took 

horse with all her Traine, and rode into the Parke: where was 

15 a delicate Bowre prepared, vnder the which were placed her Highnes 

Musitians, and this dittie following song while her Maiestie shot at the 

Deere. 

A Dittie. 

I Ehold her lockes like wiers of beaten gold, 

B 1 

her eies like starres that twinkle in the skie, 

Her heauenly face not framd of earthly molde, 

Her voice that sounds Apollos melodie, 

The miracle of time, the (whole) worlds storie, 

Fortunes Queen, Loues treasure, Natures glory. 

25 No flattering hope she likes, blind Fortunes bait 

nor shadowes of delight, fond fansies glasse, 

Nor charmes that do inchant, false artes deceit, 

nor fading ioyes, which time makes swiftly pas 

But chast desires which beateth ail these downe; 

30 A Goddesse looke is worth a Monarchs crowne. 

11 After fas est N adds Wherewithall her Highnes tooke the keye, and said, 

she would sweare for him, there was none more faithfull: then being alighted, 

she embraced the ladie Montecute, and the ladie Dormir her daughter. The 

Mistresse of the house (as it were weeping in her bosome) said, '0 happie time, 

0 joyfull daie!' 11 capescere Q 

That night her Majestie tooke her rest; and so in like manner the next day, 

which was Sunday, being most royallie feasted. The proportion of breakefast was 

three oxen, and one hundred and fourtie geese. 

12 Mundaie, August 17. N 1823 15-17 were... Deere] were her Highnesse 

musicians placed, and a crossebowe by a Nymph, with a sweet song, deliveied to 

her hands, to shoote at the deere, about some thirtie in number, put into a paddock, 

of which number she killed three or four, and the Countess of Kildare one. N 

18 A Dittie] this with the three following stanzas om. N


Goddesse and Monarch of (t)his happie lie, 

vouchsafe this bow which is an huntresse part: 

Your eies are arrows though they seeme to smile 

which neuer glanst but gald the stateliest hart, 

Strike one, strike all, for none at all can flie, J 

They gaze you in the face although they die. 

Then rode hir Grace to Cowdrey to dinner, and aboute sixe of the 

clocke in the euening, from a Turret sawe sixteene Buckes (all hauing 

fayre lawe) pulled downe with Greyhoundes in a laund. 

Tewsdaie. 

On Tewsdaie her Maiestie went to dinner to the Priory, where my 

Lord himselfe kept house, and there was she and her Lordes most 

bountifully feasted. 

F 

The Pilgrimes speech. 

F Aires t of all creatures, vouchsaf to heare a prayer of a Pilgrime, 15 

which shall be short, and the petition which is but reasonable. 

(Risk. p. God graunt the worlde maie ende with your life, and your life more 

47711.7-8; happie then anie in the world: that is my praier. I haue trauelled 

Ewbh. 

ii. 212 tnanie Countries, and in all Countries desire antiquities. In this 

1• 16) Hand (but a spanne in respect of the world) and in this Shire (but 20 

a finger in regard of your Realme) I haue heard great cause ofivonder, 

some of complaint. Harde by, and so neere as your Maiestie shall 

almost passe by, I sawe an Oke, whose statelines nayled mine eies to 

the branches, and the ornamentes beguiled my thoughtes with astonishment. 

I thought it free, being in the fielde, but I found it not so. 25 

For at the verie enirie I mette I know not with what rough-heived 

(Garden- Ruffian, whose armes wer canrued out of knotty box, for I could receue 

ers speech,p 4181.12) nothing of him but boxes, so hastie was he to strike, he had no ley sure 

(Euph. ii. to speake. I thought there were more ivaies to the wood then one, and 

661.26) finding another passage, I found also a Ladie verie faire, but passing 30 

31; End. frowarde, whose words set mee in a greater heate then the blowes. 

v. 1. 81) Iasked hher name she said it was Peace. I wondred that Peace could 

9 After laund N adds All the huntinge ordered by Maister Henrie Browne, the 

lord Montagues thirde sonne, raunger of Windsore forrest 10 Tuesdaie, August 

18. N 1823 13 After feasted N adds After dinner she came to viewe my 

Lordes walkes, where shee was raette by a Pilgrime, clad in a coat of russet velvet, 

fashioned to his calling; his hatte being of the same, with skallop shelles of cloth 

of silver, who delivered hir a speach in this sort following: 14 The . . . 

speech] Pilgrime N

AT COWDRAY 425 

neuer holde her peace. I cannot perswade my selfe since that time, but 

that there is a waspes nest in mine earn. I returned discontent. But 

if it will please your Highnesse to view it, that rude Champion at your 

fairefeete will laic doivne his foule head: and at your becke that Ladie (End.'iv.3. 

5 will make her mouth her tongues mue. Happelie your Maiestie shall 70;Mi 

finde some content: I more antiquities. 113) 

Then did the Pilgrime conduct her Highnes to an Oke not farre 

off, whereon her Maiesties armes, and all the armes of the Noblemen, 

and Gentlemen of that Shire, were hanged in Escutchions most beutifull, 

10 and a wilde man cladde in Iuie, at the sight of her Highnesse spake 

as foloweth. 

The wilde mans speech at the tree. 

M 

M Ightie 

Princesse) whose happines is attended by the heauens, and 

whose gouernment is wondered at vpon the earth: vouchsafe 

15 to heare why this passage is kept, and this Oke honoured. The whole (Sudeley, 

world is drawen in a mappc: the heauens in a Globe: and this Shire P; 480 , 

Petition p. 

shrunke in a Tree: that what your Maiestie hath ofte heard off with 64) 

some comfort, you may now be/wide with full content. This Oke, from 

whose bodie so many armes doe spread: and out of whose armes so 

20 many fingers spring: resembles in parte your strength & happinesse. 

Strength, in the number and the honour: happinesse, in the trueth 

and consent. All heartes of Oke, then which nothing surer: nothinig 

sounder. All wouen in one roote, then which nothing more constant, 

nothing more naturall. The wall of this Shire is the sea, strong, but 

25 rampired with true hearts, inuincible: where euery priuate mans eie 

is a Beacon to discouer: euerie noble mans power a Bulwarke to de- (Life, p. 13 

fende. Here they are all differing someivhat in degrees, not in ll.19-21) 

duetie: the greatnes of the branches, not the greenesse. Your maiesty 

they account the Oke, the tree of Iupiter, whose root is so deepliefast- 

30 ened, that treacherie, though shee vndcrmine to the centre, cannot finde (End. v. r. 

the windings, and whose toppe is so highlie reared, that enuie, though l124-6(Tre 

she shoote on copheigth, cannot reach her, vnder whose armes they and Enhaue 

both shade and shelter. Well wot they that your enemies light- uye)) 

m'ngs are but flashes, and their thunder, which files the whole world 

35 with a noise of conquest, shall end with a softe shower of Retreate. 

Be then as confident in your steppes, as Caesar was in his Fortune. 

His proceedings but of conceit: yours ofvertue. Abroad courage hath 

made you feared, at home honoured clemencie. Clemencie which the 

27 in 2 om. N 32 on copheigth : so Q. N

•426 ENTERTAINMENTS 

owner of this Groue hath tasted: in such sort, that his thoughts are 

become his hearts laberinth, surprized with ioie and loialtie. Ioy without 

measure, loyaltie without end, liuing in no other ayer, then that 

which breathes your Maiesties safetie. 

For himselfe, and all these honourable Lords, and Gentlemen, whose 5 

(Euph. i. shieides your Males tie doeth here beholde, I can say this, that as the 

2 I81.22; 

. veines are dispersed through all the bodie, yet, when the heart feeleth 

any extreame passion, sende all their hloud to the heart for comfort: 

so they being in diuers places, when your Maieslie shall but stande in 

feare of any daunger, will bring their bodies, their purses, their soules, 10 

to your Highnesse, being their heart, their head, and their Soueraigne, 

This passage is kept straight, and the Pilgrime I feare hath complained 

: but such a disguised worlde it is, that one can scarce know 

a Pilgrime from a Priest, a Taller from a Gentleman, nor a man 

from a woman. Euerie one seeming to he that which they are not, 15 

onely do practise what thy should not. The heauens guide you, your 

Maiestie gouemes vs: though our peace bee enuied, yet we hope it 

shall be eternall. 

( King of Elizabetha Deus nobis haec otia fecit. 

Denmark s 

p.507) The Dittie. 

THere is a bird that builds her neast with spice, 

and built, the Sun to ashes doth her burne, 

Out of whose sinders doth another rise. 

& she by scorching beames to dust doth turne: 

Thus life a death, and death a life doth proue, 25 

The rarest thing on earth except my loue. 

My loue that makes his neast with high desires, 

and is by beauties blaze to ashes brought, 

Out of the which do breake out greater fires, 

they quenched by disdain consume to nought, 3° 

And out of nought my cleerest loue doth rise, 

True loue is often slaine but neuer dies. 

(Euph. i. 

True loue which springs, though Fortune on it tread 

as camomel by pressing down doth grow 

1961. 3 

Euph. 1. 

Or as the Palme that higher reares his head, 35 

ii. 1911.9; 761. 35) whe men great burthens on the branches throw 

15 one] man N be] he Q 17 by them after envied N 19 

foecit Q . 20 The Dittie] this, with the three following stanzas, om. N 

36 burthens Q


Loue fansies birth, Fidelitie the wombe, 

the Nurse Delight, Ingratitude the tombe. 

Then vppon the winding of a Cornet was a most excellent crie 

of hounds, with whome her Maiestie hunted and had good sport. 

Wednesdaie. 

On wednesdaie the Lords and Ladies dined in the walkes, feasted 

most sumptuously. In the euening her Maiestie comming to take the 

pleasure of the walkes, was delighted with most delicate musicke, and 

brought to a goodly Fishpond where was an Angler, that taking no notice 

10 of hir Maiestie, spake as followeth. 

N Ext 

The Anglers Speech, 

rowing in a Westerne barge well fare Angling, I haue bin {End. iv. 

here this two houres and cannot catch an oyster. It may be 2.53-7) for lacke of a bait, & that were h 

15 euerie man laies bait for another. In the Citie merchants bait their 

tongues with a lie and an oath, and so make simple men swallow deceitfull 

wares: and fishing for commoditie is growen sofarre, that men 

are become fishes, for Lande lords put such sweete baits on rackt rents, (M. Bomb. 

V. 2. I13that 

as good it were to be a perch in a pikes belly, as a Tenant in theyr i 

20 famies. All our trade is growen to trecherie, for now fish are caught 

with medians: which are as vnwholsom as loue procured by witchcraft (Euph. ii. 

vnfortunate. We Anglers make our lines ofdiuers colours, according lo8 ll• 2 3to 

the kindes of waters: so doe men their hues, aiming at the complexion 2.' 75-7) 

of the faces. Thus Marchandize, Loue, and Lordships sucke venom out 

25 ofvertue. I think I shal fish all dale and catch a frog, the cause is (Euph. ii. 

neither in the line, the hooke, nor the bait, but some thing there is ouer 1731.26) ' 

beautifull which stayeth the verk Minow (of all fish the most eager) 

from biting. For this we Anglers obserue, that the shadow of a man 

turneth backe the fish. What will then the sight of a Goddesse ? Tis 

30 best angling in a lowring dale, for here the Sunne so glisters, that the 

fish see my hooke through my bait But soft here be the Netters, these 

be they that cannot content them with a dish of fish for their supper, but (Euph. ii. 

will draw a whole pond for the market 174 1• 13) 

4 with .. . sport] and three buckes kilde by the bucke hounds, and so went 

all backe to Cowdrey to supper N 5 Wednesdaie, August 19. N 1823 

6 feasting N 7 at a table foure and twentie yards long after sumptuously 

N euening] beginning N 33 the] a N


This saide, he espied a Fisherman, drawing his nettes towarde 

where hir Maiestie was. And calling alowde to him. Ho Sirra 

(quoth the Angler) What shall I giue thee for thy draught ? If there 

be neuer a whale in it, take it for a Noble, quoth the Netter. 

Ang. Be there any maydes there ? 5 

Net. Maydes, foole! they be sea fish. 

Ang. Why ? 

(Gall v. i. Net Venus was borne of the Sea, and tis reason she should haue 

17-8) maydes to attend hir. 

Then turned he to the Queene, and after a small pawse, spake as 10 

followeth. 

M 

(Hareftcld, MADAME, it is an olde saying, There is no fishing to the sea, nor 

p. 499) IVl sendee to the King: but it holdes when the sea is ca/me, & 

the king vertuous. Your vertue doth make Enuie blush, and Enuie 

stands amazed at your happines. I come not to tell the art of fishing, 15 

nor the natures offish, nor their daintines, but with a poore Fishermans 

wishe, that all the hollowe hearts to your Maiestie were in my 

net, and if there bee more then it will holde, I woulde they were in the 

sea till I went thether a fishing. 

There bee some so muddle minded, that they can not Hue in a cleere 20 

(Euph. ii. riuer but a standing poole, as camells will not drinke till they haue 

1431-14; troubled the water with their feet: so can they neuer stanch their thirst, 

Pappe, 396 

1. 16) till they haue disturbd the state with their trecheries. Soft, these are 

no fancies for fisher men. Yes true hearts are as good as full purses, 

the one the sinewes of war, the other the armes. A dish offish is an 25 

vnworthie present for a prince to accept; there be some carpes amongst 

them, no carpers of states, if there be, I would they might bee handled 

lyke carpes, their tongues pulled out. Some pearches there are I am 

sure, and if anie pearch higher than in dutie they ought, I would they 

might sodenly picke ouer the pearch for me. What so euer there is, if 30 

it be good it is all yours, most excellent Ladie, that are best worthie of 

the greatest good. 

14 maketh N Enuie stands] stand N 27 states] state N 31 

excellent] vertuous N 32 the greatest good] all N, a correction pointing 

to Lytys revision even of the later Q, which from this point, as reported by N, is 

entirely different from our text It omits the Mshermaris Song and the concluding 

words altogether, proceeding asfolloiv :— 

Then was the net drawen. 

The Netter having presented all the fishe of the ponde, and laying it at hir feete, 

departed. * 

That evening s"he hunted.


That ended, 

This Song of the Fisherman. 

THE fish that seeks for food in siluer streame 

is vnawares beguiled with the hooke, 

And tender harts when lest of loue they dreame, 

do swallow beauties bait, a louely looke. 

The fish that shuns to bite, in net doth hit, 

The heart that scapes the eie is caught by wit. 

The thing cald Loue, poore Fisher men do feele 

rich pearles are found in hard and homely shels 

Our habits base, but hearts as true as Steele, 

sad lookes, deep sighs, flat faith are all our spels, 

And when to vs our loues seeme faire to bee, 

We court them thus, Loue me and Ile loue thee. 

And if they saie our loue is fondly made, 

we neuer leaue till on their hearts we lite, 

Anglers haue patience by their proper trade, 

and are content to tarrie till they bite, 

Of all the fish that in the waters moue, 

Wc count them lumps that will not bite at loue. 

For the rest of the Entertainment, honorable feastings and abundance 

of all things that might manifest a liber all and a loyall lieart, 

Thursday. (August 20. added N'1823) 

On Thursday she dined in the privie walkes in the garden, and the Lordes and 

Ladies at a table of fortie-eight yardes long. In the evening the countrie people 

presented themselves to hir Majestie in a pleasant daunce, with taber and pipe; and 

the Lorde Montague and his Lady among them, to the great pleasure of all the beholders, 

and gentle applause of hir Majestie. 

Fry day, (August 21. added N 1823) 

On Friday she departed towards Chichester. Going through the arbour to take 

horse, stoode sixe gentlemen, whom hir Majestie knighted; the Lorde Admirall 

laying the sworde on their shoulders. 

The names of the sixe knights then made were these; viz. 

Sir George Browne, my Lordes second sonne. 

Sir Robert Dormir, his sonne in lawe. 

Sir Henry Goaiing. 

Sir Henry Glemham. 

Sir Iohn Carrell. 

Sir Nicholas Parker. 

So departed hir Majestie to the dining place, whether the Lord Montague and his 

sonnes, and the sheriffe of the shire, attended with a goodly companie of gentlemen, 

brought hir Highnes. 

The escutchions on the oke remaine, and there shall hange till they can hang 

together one peece by another. Vakte.


because I was not there, I cannot set dozvne, thus much by 

report I heare, & by the words of those that deserue 

credite, that it was such as much contented her 

Maiestie, and made many others to wonder. 

And so her Mates tie we11pleasedwith her 

welcome, &>he throughly comforted 

with her Highnesse gracious acceptance, 

shee went from 

thence to Chichester. 

9 No colophon

THE 1 

HONORABLE 

Entertainement gieuen to the 

Queen es Maiestie in Progresses at Elue- 

tham in Hampshire, by the right 

Honorable the Earle 

of Hertford. 

A LAMY FIDELE POVR JAMAIS. 

L 0 N DO N. 

Printed by Iohn Wolfe, and are to bee 

sold at the little Shop ouer against the great South 

don of Paules- 15 91. 

1 EDITIONS—(1) = Q'. 15-91, 4 0 , followed in this edition. Title as above. 18 

leaves, A-E 2inTours, title-page verso blank. No col. (Br. Mus.: press-markC. 

33. e. 7 (9)). It agrees in the main with the earlier of Nichols' two quartos; 

but exhibits sufficient differences to constitute it a distinct and earlier ed., 

and not merely an earlier issue of Q2. It contains no illustration. 

(2) 1591, 4. 0 , with an illustration, which was perhaps enlarged by Nichols 

in (4.). 

(3) 15-91,4.°. "Newlie corrected and amended," with fresh illustration, 

which was perhaps enlarged by Nichols in (5). 

(4,) Reprint of (2) in Nichols' Piogresses, 1788, vol. ii. Title worded as (i) 

(5) Reprint of (3) in Nich. Prog. 1823, vol. iii. 101-21. Title otherwise 

worded as (1). 

'Q2,' 'Q3,' in footnotes refer only to Nichols' Reprints.

THE PROEME. 

"DEfore I declare the iust time or manner of her Maiesties arriuall 

and entertainment at Eluetham, it is needful (for the Readers 

better vnderstanding of euerie part and processe in my discourse) that 

I set downe as well the conucnience of the place, as also the suffising, 5 

by art and labour, of what the place in it selfe could not affoord on the 

sodaine, for receipt of so great a Maiestie, and so honorable a traine. 

Eluetham house beeing scituate in a Parke but of two miles in compasse 

or thereabouts, and of no great receipt, as beeing none of the Earles 

chiefe mansion houses ; yet for the desire he had to shew his vnfained 10 

loue, and loyall duetie to her most gratious highnesse, purposing to visite 

him in this her late progresse, whereof he had to vnderstand by the 

ordinarie Gesse, as also by his honorable good frendes in Court, neare to 

her Maiestie : his Honor with all expedition set Artificers a work, to the 

number of three hundred, many daies before her Maiesties arriuall, 15 

to inlarge his house with newe roomes and offices. Whereof I omit to 

speake how manie were destined to the offices of the Queenes houshold, 

and will onlie make mention of other such buildings, as were raised 

on the sodaine, fourteene score off from the house on a hill side, within 

the said Parke, for entertainement of Nobles, Gentlemen, and others 20 

whatsoeuer. 

First there was made a roome of Estate for the Nobles, and at the end 

thereof a withdrawing place for her maiestie. The outsides of the walles 

were all couered with boughes, and clusters of ripe hasell nuttes, the 

insides with Arras, the roofe of the place with works of luy leaues, the 25 

floore with sweet herbes and greene rushes. 

Neare adioining vnto this, were many offices new-builded, as namely, 

Spicerie, Larderie, Chaundrie, Wine-seller, Ewery and Panterie: all 

which were tyled. Not farre off, was erected a large Hall, for entertainment 

of Knights, Ladies, and Gentlemen of chiefe account. 30 

There was also a seuerall place for her Maiesties footemen, and their 

friends. 

Then was there a long Bowre for her maiesties Guard. 

An other for other Officers of her Ma. house. 

An other to entertaine all commers, suiters and such like. 35 

34 Officers] servants Q3 Majesties Q 2 35 An other .. . such like 

om. Q3

AT ELVETHAM 433 

An other for my Lords Steward, to keepe his table in. 

An other for his Gentlemen that waited. 

Most of these foresaid roomes were furnished with tables, and the tables 

carried 23. yards in length. 

5 Moreouer on the same hill, there was raised a great common buttrey. 

A pitcher house. 

A large pastery, with flue ouens new built, some of them foureteene 

foote deepe. 

A great kitchin, with four ranges, and a boyling place for small boild 

10 meates. 

An other kitchin with a very long range, for the waste, to serue all 

commers. 

A boiling house for the great boiler. 

A roome for the scullery. 

15 An other roome for the Cookes lodgings. 

Some of these were couered with canuas, and other some with bordes. 

Betweene my Lords house and the foresayd hill, where these roomes 

were raised, there had beene made in the bottom, by handy labour, 

a goodly pond, cut to the perfect figure of a half moon. In this pond 

20 were three notable grouds, where hence to present her M. with sports, 

and pastimes. The first was a Ship lie of 100. foot in length, and 40. 

foote broad: bearing three trees orderly set for 3. masts. The second 

was a Fort 20. foot square euery way, and ouergrown with willows. 

The 3. & last was a Snayl mount, rising to foure circles of greene 

25 priuie hedges, the whole in height twentie foot, and fortie foote broad at 

the bottome. These three places were equally distant from the sides 

of the ponde, and euerie one by a iust measured proportion distant from 

other. In the said water were diuers boates prepared for Musicke ; but 

especially there was a Pinnace, ful furnisht with masts, yards, sailes, 

3° anchors, cables, and all other ordinarie tackling; & with iron peeces; 

and lastly with flagges, streamers, and pendants, to the number of twelue, 

all painted with diuers colours, and sundry deuises. To what vse these 

4 twenty-three QQ 23 and sentence uitalicized 20 M.] Majestie QQ 2.3 

21 ci hundred QQ 2 ' 3 forty Q2: iour-score Q3 22 three QQ2. 3 

23 twenty QQ 2.3 24 third QQ 2 ' 3 28 the bef. other QQ 2.3 

32 After deuises Q 2 has a full-page illustration headed A Description of the 

Great Pond at Elvetham, and of the Properties which it containeth: Q 3 has 

a different illustration, more detailed, with heading A Description ... in Elvetham, 

. . . contained, at such time as her Majestie was there presented with faire shewes 

and pastimes. 

A. Her Majesties presence-seate, and traine. 

B. Nereus, and his followers. 

C. The pinnace of Neaera, and her musicke. 

D. The Ship-ile. 

E. A boate with musicke, attending on the pinnace of Nesera. 

F. The Fort-mount. 

G. The Snaile-mount. 

H. The Roome of Estate. 

BONO I Ft

434 


particulars serued, it shall euidently appeare by that which followeth. 

And therefore I am to request the gentle Reader, that when any of these 

places are briefly specified in the sequele of this discourse, it will please 

him to haue reference to this fore-description ; that in auoiding tautologies, 

or reiterations, I may not seeme to them obscure, whom I studie 5 

to please with my plainnesse. For Proeme these may suffise: nowe to 

the matter itselfe: that it may be vltimxi in exccntione (to vse the old 

phrase) quod primum fuit in intent tone , as is vsuall to good carpenters, 

who intending to build a house, yet first lay their foundation, & square 

many a post, and fasten manie a rafter, before the house be set vp : what 10 

they first purposed is last done. And thus much for excuse of a long 

foundation to a short building. 

The first dates entertainment. 

O N the twentith day of September, being Munday, my Lord of Hertford 

ioyfully expecting her Maiesties comming to Eluetham to sup- 15 

per, as her Highnes had promised : after dinner, when euery other needful 

place or point of seruice was established and set in order, for so great an 

entertainment, about three of the clocke his Honor seeing all his Retinew 

well mounted and ready to attend his pleasure, hee drew them secretly 

into a chief thicket of the Parke, where in few words, but well couched 20 

to the purpose, hee put them in mind, what quietnes, and what diligence, 

or other duetie, they were to vse at that present: that their 

seruice might first work her Maiesties content, & thereby his Honor, 

and lastlie their own credite, with increse of his loue and fauour towards 

them. This done, my Lord with his traine (amounting to the number 25 

of 3. hundred, and most of them wearing chains of gold about their 

necks, and in their hats Yellow and Black feathers) met with her 

Maiestie two miles off, then comming to Eluetham from her owne house 

of Odiham four miles from thence. As my Lorde in this first action 

shewed hinlselfe dutiful, so her Maiesty was to him and his most gracious 30 

as also in the sequel, between fiue & sixe of the clock, when her Highnes 

being most honorably atteded, entred into Eluetham Parke, and was 

more then halfe way between the Park gate & the house, a Poet saluted 

I. Her Majesties Court. 

K. Her Majesties wardrop. 

L. The place whence Silvanus and his companie issued. 

Nichols ' Progresses,' ed. 1788-1805, reproduces both Plates. 

4 tantilogies, or Q l : om. QQ2.3 14 twentieth Q 2 : twentie Q3 

my Lord] the Earle Q3 16 after dinner] the same morning, about nine of the 

clock, Q3 18-20 about three . . . secretly into a] called for, and drewe all his 

servants into the Q 2 20-1 but . . . puipose om. Q 3 24 the bef. increase Q3 

25-6 My Lord ... 3. hundred] after dinner, with his traine well mounted, to the 

number of two hundred and upwardes, Q3 26 three Q 2 : two Q 3 27-9 

and in their . . . thence. As my Lorde] he rode toward Odiham, and leaving 

his traine and companie orderlie placed, to attende her Majestie's comming out of 

Odiham Parke, three miles distant from Elvetham: himselfe wayting on her Majestie 

from Odiham House. As the Earl Q 3


her with a Latine Oration in Heroicall verse, I mean veridicus vates, 

a sooth saying Poet, nothing inferior for truth, and little for deliuery of 

his mind, to an ordinarie Orator. This Poet was clad in greene, to 

signify the ioy of his thoughts at her entrance, a laurel garland on his 

5 head, to expresse that Apollo was patrone of his studies: an oliue branch 

in his hand, to declare what continual peace and plentie he did both 

wish and aboade her Maiestie: and lastly booted, to betoken that hee 

was vates cothumatus, and not a loose or lowe creeping Prophet, as 

Poets are interpreted by some idle or enuious ignorants. 

10 This Poets boy offered him a cushion at his first kneeling to her 

Maiestie, but he refused it, saying as followeth. 

The Poel to his boy offering him 

a Cushion. 

Non jam puluillis opus est, sed corde sereno: 

15 Nam plusquam solitis istic aduoluimur aris. 

The Poets Speach to her 

Maiestie 

N Vper ad Abnium flexo dum poplite fontetn 

Indulsi placido, Phci'bi sub peciine, somno, 

20 Veridicos inter vales, quos Entheus ardor 

Possidet, & virtus nullis offusa lituris, 

Talia securo cantabant carmina Musœ. 

Aspicis insueto tingentem lumine cœlum 

Anglorum nostro maiorem nomine Nytnpham 

25 Os, kumcrbsque Deœ simikm, dum tufa Semen 

Tecta petit, qnalis dikcta Philcemonis olim 

Cannea cœlicolum subijt magalia rector•? (81 1. 10; 

Olli tu blandas humili die ore salutes: Camp. 

Prol 2 ' 

Nos dabimus numeros, numeros dabit ipsus Apollo. Bish ' 

30 Sed metues Tanta summas attingere laudes: P-475) 

Nam specie Solem, Superos virtutibus œquans, 

Maiestate locum, sacrisque timoribus implet. 

Doctior est nobis, œ nobis prasidet vna : 

Ditior est Ponto, Pontum quoq& temperat vna : 

35 Pulchrior est nymphis, et nymphis imperat vna: 

Dignior est Diuis, & Diuos allicit vna. 

En supplex adsum, Musaru numine ductus, 

4 entrance,] the comma at thoughts Q 1 22 securo ... carmina so QQ 

27 Cannae Q 3 

F f 2


Et mentis (Augusta) tuts, o dulcis Elisa, 

Fronte serenata modicum dignare poetam, 

Ne mea vernantem deponant tempora laurutn, 

Et miser in cantu moriar. Se ndmq3 Semeri 

Obsequiosa meis condit persona sub vmbris: 

Qui fert ore preces, oculo fœcundat oliuam ; 

Officium precibus, pacem designat oliua ; 

Affectum docet ojficijs, & pace quietcm ; 

Mentes affectu mulcebit, me)?ibra quiete. 

Hi mores, hcec vera tui persona Semeri, 

Cui latum sine te nihil, illcztabile tecum 

Est nihil. En rident ad vestros omnia vultus 

Suauiter, immensum donec fulgoribus orbem 

Elisabetha nouis imples: nox inuidet vna: 

Astra sed inuidia tollunt mala signa tenebras. 

Cœtera, qua possunt, sacra gratantur Elisae 

Loztitia, protnptbsq3 ferunt in gaudia vultus. 

Limulus insultat per piclos hosdus agellos 

Passibus obtortis ; et toruum bucula taurum 

Blada petit; tremulus turgescii frodibus arbos, 

Graminibus pratum, generosa pampinus vua : 

Et tenui latices in arena duke susurrant, 

Insuetumq) melos: Te, te, dulcissima Princeps, 

Terra, polus, fluuij, plantœ, pecudisqt salutant: 

Diimq3 tuam cupide miratur singula formam, 

Infixis hœrent oculis, nequeuntq} tuendo 

Expleri; solitis sed nunc liberrima cur is, 

In placidos abeut animos: non semina vermes, 

Non cerui metuunt casses, non herba calorem, 

Non viscu 7 olucres, non fruges grandinis ictu. 

O istos (Augusta) dies, o profer in annos ; 

Et lustrum ex annis, e lustris sœicula surgant; 

E sceclis œuum, nullo numerabile motu: 

Vt nostros dudum quotquot risere dolores, 

Gaudia iam numerent, intabescdntq) vidMo. 

En, iter obiecto qua clauserat obice Liuor, 

Virtuiis famulœ Charites, castriq3 superni 

Custodes Horœ, blandissima numina iunctim 

lam tollunt remoras, vt arena floribus ornent. 

29 cassem QQ 2.3


Ergo age) supplicibus succede penatibus hospes, 

Et nutu moderare tuo ; Tibi singula parit, 

Et nisi parerent Tibi singula, tola perirent. 

Dicite Psean, et Id ter dicite Pasan, (Mid. v. 3. 

Spargite flore vias, & mollem cantibus aura Ars Am. 

ii.i) 

Because all our Countrey-men are not Latinists, I thinke it not amisse 

to set this downe in English, that all may bee indifferently partakers 

of the Poets meaning. 

The Poets speech to his boy of 

fering him a Cushion. 

Now let vs vse no cushions, but faire hearts: 

For now we kneel to more than usuall Saints. 

The Poets speech to her 

Maiestie. 

wKJ Hhile at the fountaine of the sacred hill, 

V ' Vnder Apollos lute, I sweetly slept, 

Mongst prophets full possest with holy fury, 

And with true vertue, void of all disdaine: 

The Muses swig, and wattd me with these wordes. 

Seest thou that English Nimph, in face and shape 

Resembling some great Goddesse, and whose beames 

Doe sprinkle heau'n with vnacquainied light, 

While shee doth visite Semers fraudlesse house, 

As Iupiter did honour with his presence (Euph. ii. 

The poore thatcht cottage, where Philozmon dwelt ? 81 l.10; 

See thou salute her with an humble voice; prol. 2;. 

Phoebus, and we, will let thee lack no verses, Bish. 

But dare not once aspire to touch her praise. 

Who, like the Sunne for shew, to Gods for vertue, 

Fills all with Maiesty, and holy feare. 

More learned then our selues, shee ruleth vs: 

More rich then seas, shee doth commaund the seas: 

More fair then Nimphs, she gouerns al the Nimphs(:) 

More worthy then the Gods, shee wins the Gods. 

Behold (Augusta) thy poore suppliant 

Is here, at their desire, but thy desert


0 sweete Elisa, grace vie with a looke, 

Or from my browes this Laurell wreath will fall, 

And I vnhappy die amidst my song. 

Vnder my person Semer hides himselfe, 

His mouth yeelds prafrs, his eie the Oliue branch ; 

His praiers betoken duety, th'Oliue peace; 

His duety argues loue, his peace faire rest; 

His hue will smooth your minde, faire rest your body. 

This is your Semers heart and quality: 

To whom all things are ioyes, while thou art present, 

To whom nothing is pleasing, in thine absence. 

Behold, on thee how each thing sweetly smiles, 

To see thy brightnes glad our hemispheare: 

Night only enuies: whome faire stars doe crossc: 

All other creatures striue to shew their ioyes. 

The crooked-winding kid trips ore the lawnes ; 

The milkewhite heafer wantons with the bull; 

The trees shew pleasure ivith their quiuiring leaues, 

The meddow with new grasse, the vine with grapes, 

The running brookes with sweet and siluer sound. 

Thee, thee (Sweet Princes), heaiin, & earth, & finds, 

And plants, and beasts, salute with one accord: 

And while they gaze on thy perfections, 

Their eyes desire is neuer satisfied. 

Thy presence frees each thing, that liiid in doubt: 

No seedes now feare the biting of the woorme ; 

Nor deere the toyles; nor grasse the parching heat; 

Nor Birds the snare ; nor come the storme of haile. 

0 Empresse, o draw foorth these dayes to yeares, 

Yeeres to an age, ages to œtyrnitie: 

That such as lately ioyed to see our sorrowes, 

May sorrow now, to see our perfect ioyes. 

Behold where all the Graces, vertues maydes, 

And lightfoote Howrs, the guardians of heau'ns gate, 

With ioyned forces doe remoue those blocks, 

Which Enuie layd in Maiesties highway. 

Come therefore, come vnder our humble roofe, 

And with a becke commaund what it containes: 

For all is thine: each part obeys thy will; 

Did not each part obey, the wholl should perish.


Sing songs faire Nymphs, sing sweet triumphal songs, 

Fill wayes with flowrs, and tt'tayr with harmony. 

While the Poet was pronouncing this oration, six Virgins were behind 

him, busily remoouing blockes out of her maiesties way ; which blocks 

5 were supposed to bee layde there by the person of Enuie, whose condition 

is, to enuie at euery good thing, but especially to malice the 

proceedings of Vertue, and the glory of true Maiestie. Three of these 

Virgins represented the three Graces, and the other three, the Howres, 

which by the Poets are fained to be the guardians of heauen gates. 

10 They were all attired in gowns of taffata sarcenet of diuers colours, 

with flowrie garlands on their heads, and baskets full of sweet hearbs 

and flowers vppon their armes. When the Poets speach was happily 

ended, and in a scroule deliuered to her maiestie (for such was her 

gracious acceptance, that she deined to receiue it with her owne hande) 

15 then these sixe Virgins after performance of their humble reuerence to 

her highnesse, walked on before her towards the house, strewing the 

way with flowers, and singing a sweete song of six parts to this dittie, 

which followeth. 

The Dittie of the six Virgins Song. 

20 wIth fragrant flowers we strew the way 

And make this our chiefe holliday : 

For though this clime ivere blest of yore, 

Yet was it neuer proud before, 

O beauteous Queene of second Troy, 

25 Accept of our vnfained ioy. 

Now th'ayre is sweeter then sweet balme, 

And Satyrs daunce about the palme: 

Now earth, with verdure neivfy dight, 

Giues perfect signe of her delight. 

30 O beauteous Queene of second Troy, 

Accept of our vnfained ioy. 

Now birds record new harmonie, 

And trees doe whistle melodie: 

Now euerie thing that nature breeds, 

35 Doth clad it selfe in pleasant weeds, 

0 beauteous Queene of second Troy, 

Accept of our vnfained ioy, 

10 scarcenet Q 2 19 The Dittie . .. Song] The Song sung by the Graces 

and the Houres at her Majesties first arrivall. Q3 23 proud] so too l Eng, 

Bel.,' for prou'd


This song ended with her Maiesties entrance into the house: where 

shee had not rested her a quarter of an houre: but from the Snailmount 

and the Ship-He in the Pond (both being neare vnder the 

prospect of her Gallerie windowe) there was a long volley of Chambers 

discharged. After this, supper was serued in, first to her Maiestie, and 5 

then to the Nobles and others. Were it not that I would not seem to flatter 

the honorable minded Earle: or, but that I feare to displease him, who 

rather desired to expresse his loyall dutie in his liberall bountie, then to 

heare of it againe, I could heere willingly particulate the store of his 

cheare and prouision, as likewise the carefull and kind diligence of his 10 

seruantes, expressed in their quiet seruice to her Maiestie and the 

Nobility, and by their louing entertainment to all other,. frends, or 

strangers. But I leaue the bountie of the one, and the industrie of the 

others, to the iust report of such as beheld, or tasted the plentifull 

abundance of that time and place. 15 

After supper was ended, her Maiestie graciously admitted vnto her 

presence a notable consort of six Musitions, which my Lord of Hertford 

had prouided to entertaine her Maiestie withall, at her will and pleasure, 

and when it should seeme good to her highnesse. Their Musicke so 

highly pleased her, that in grace and fauour thereof, she gaue a newe 20 

name vnto one of their Pauans, made long since by Master Thomas 

Morley, then Organist of Paules Church. 

These are the chiefe pointes, which I noted in the first daies entertainment. 

Now therefore it followeth, that I proceed to the second. 

THE SECOND 2.5 

daies entertainment. 

/^\N the next day following, being Tuesday, and Saint Mathewes 

festiuall, the forenoone was so wet and stormie that nothing of 

pleasure could bee presented her Maiestie. Yet it helde vp a little before 

dinner time, and all the day after: where otherwise faire sports would 3° 

haue beene buried in foule weather. 

1 house : where] house : and her Majesty alighted from horsebacke at the Halldore, 

the Countesse of Hertford, accompanied with divers honourable Ladies and 

Gentlewomen, moste humbly on hir knees welcomed hir Highnesse to that place: 

who most graciously imbracing hir, tooke hir up, and kissed hir, using manie 

comfortable and princely Speeches, as wel to hir, as to the Earl of Hertford 

standing hard by, to the great rejoysing of manie beholders. And after hir 

Majestie's entrance, where Q 3 4 and two brass pieces after chambers Q3 

17 my Lord] the Earl Q 3 28 festiuall, the] festivall, there was in the morning 

presented to her Majesty a faire and rich gift from the Countesse of Hertforde, 

which greatly pleased and contented her Highnesse. The Q 3


This day her maiestie dined, with her Nobles about her in the roome 

of estate, new builded on the hil side, aboue the Ponds head. Ther 

sate below her, many Lords, Ladies, & Knights. The manner of 

seruice, and abundance of dainties, I omit upon iust consideration, as 

5 also the Ordinance discharged in the beginning of dinner. 

Presently after dinner, my Lord of Hertford caused a large Canapie 

of estate to bee set at the ponds head, for her maiestie to sit vnder, and 

to view some sportes prepared in the water. The Canapie was of greene 

satten, lined with greene taffeta sarcenet; euerie seame couered with 

10 a broad siluer lace; valcnced about, and fringed with greene silke and 

siluer, more then a hand-bredth in depth; supported with four siluer 

pillers moueable ; and deckt aboue head with four white plumes, spangled 

with siluer. This Canapie being vpheld by foure of my Lordes chiefe 

Gentlemen, and tapestry spread all about the pondes head, her maiestie, 

15 about foure of the clocke came, and sate vnder it, to expect the issue of 

some deuise, being aduertised, that there was some such thing towards. 

At the further end of the ponde, there was a Bower, close built to the 

brinke thereof; out of which ther went a pompous aray of seapersons, 

which waded bresthigh, or swam til they approched neare the seat of 

20 her maiestie. Nereus, the prophet of the sea, attired in redde silke, and 

hauinga cornerd-cappe on his curlde heade, did swimme before the rest, as 

their pastor & guide. After him came hue Tritons brest-high in the water, 

all with grislie heades, and beardes of diuers colours and fashions, and 

all flue cheerefully sounding their Trumpets. After them went two other 

25 Gods of the sea, Neptune and Oceamis, leading betweene them that 

Pinnace, whereof I spake in the beginning of this Treatise. 

In the pinnace were three Virgins, which with their Cornets played 

Scottish Gigs, made three parts in one. There was also in the saide pinnace 

an other Nymph of the sea, named Necera, the old supposed loue of 

30 SyluanuS, a God of the woodes. Neare to her were placed three excellent 

voices, to sing to one lute, and in two other boats hard by, other lutes 

and voices to answer by manner of Eccho : after the pinnace, & two 

other boats, which were drawne after it by other Sea-gods, the rest 

of the traine followed bresthigh in the water, all attired in ouglie marine 

35 suites, and euerie one armed with a huge woodden squirt in his hand: 

to what end it shal appear hereafter. In their marching towards the 

pond, all along the middle of the current, the Tritons sounded one halfe 

of the way, and then they ceasing, the Cornets plaid their Scottish gigs. 

The melody was sweet, & the shew stately. 

40 By the way it is needfull to touch here many thinges abruptly, for the 

better vnderstanding of that which followeth, 

5 dinner.] dinner, a variety of consorted music at dinner time. Q 2 6 my 

Lord] the Karl Q3 12 dekt QQ 2 ' 3 13-4 of my . . . Gentlemen] worthie 

Knightes (Sir Henrie Greie, Sir Walter Hungerfoid, Sir James Maruin, and Lord 

George Caro) Q 3 25 Phorcus and Glaucus, bef. leading Q 3


First, that in the Pinnace are two iewels to be presented her Maiestie: 

the one by Nereus, the other by Neœra. 

Secondly, that the Fort in the Pond, is round enuironed with armed 

men. 

Thirdly, that the Snayle-mount nowe resembleth a monster, hauing 5 

homes full of wild-fire continually burning. 

And lastly, that the god Siluanus, lieth with his traine not farre off 

in the woodes, and will shortly salute her Maiestie, and present her with 

a holly scutchion, wherein Apollo had long since written her praises. 

All this remembred and considered, I nowe returne to the Sea-gods, 10 

who hauing vnder the conduct of Nerens brought the Pinnace neare 

before her Maiestie, Nereus made his Oration, as followeth; but before 

he began, hee made a priuie signe vnlo one of his traine, which was 

gotten vp into the Shippe-lle, directly before her Maiestie, and hee 

presently did cast himselfe downe, dooing a Summerset from the lle 15 

into the water, and then swam to his companie. 

The Oration of Nereus to her Maiesty.Aire Cinthia the wide Oceans Em 

/ watry Nereus houered on the coast 

F 

To greets your Maiesty ivith this my traine 20 

Of dauncing Tritons, and shrill singing Nimphs. 

(Woman, But all in vaihe: Elisa was not there; 

For which our Neptune grieud, and blamd the star, 

Whose thwarting influence dasht our longing hope. 

Therefore impatient, that this worthies earth 25 

Should beare your Highnes weight, and we sea Gods, 

(Whose iealous wanes haue swallotvd vp your foes. 

And to your Real me are walks impregnable) 

With such large fauour seldome time are grac't: 

I from the deepes haue drawen this winding flud, 30 

Whose crescent forme figures the rich increase 

Of all that sweet Elisa holdeth deare. 

And with me came gould-brested India, 

Who daunted at your sight, leapt to the shoare, 

And sprinkling endlesse treasure on this lie, 35 

Left me this iewell to present your Grace, 

For hym) that vnder you doth hold this place. 

See where her ship remaines, whose silketvouen takling 

15 summer-sawt Q 3


Is turnde to twigs, and threefold mast to trees, 

Receining life from verdure of your lookes ; 

{For what cannot your gracious looks effect ?) 

Yon vgly monster creeping from the South, 

To spoyle these blessed fields of Albion, 

By selfe same beames is chang'd into a Snaile, 

Whose bulrush homes are not of force to hurt. 

As this snaile is, so be thine enemies, 

And neuer yet did Nereus wishe in vaine. 

That Fort did Neptune raise, for your defence ; 

And in this Barke, which gods hale neare the shore, 

White footed Thetis sends her Musicke maydes, 

To please Elisaes eares with harmony. 

Hear them fair Qiiecne; and when their Musick ends, 

My Triton shall awake the SyInane Gods, 

To doe their hommage to your Maiesty. 

This Oration being deliuered, and withall the present wherof he spake, 

which was hidden in a purse of greene rushes, cunningly woauen 

together: immediatly the three voices in the Pinnace sung a song to 

the Lute with excellent diuisions, and the end of euery verse was replied 

by Lutes and voices in the other boate somwhat a farre off, as if they had 

bcene Ecchoes. 

The Sea nymphes Dittie. 

H Oiv haps that now, when pritne is don, 

An other spring time is begun ? 

23 The . . . Dittie] Q3 amplifies as follows :—The Song presented by Nereus on 

the Water, sung dialogue-wise, everie fourth verse answered with two Ecchoes. 

Dem. How haps it now 'vhen prime is done, 

Another spring-time is begun? 

Resp. Our happie soile is overrunne, 

With beautie of a second sunne. 

Eccho. A second sunne. 

Dem. What heavenlie lampe, with holie light, 

Doeth so increase our climes delight? 

Resp. A lampe whose beames are ever bright, 

And never feares approching night. 

Eccho, Approching night. 

Dem. Why sing we not eternall praise, 

To that faire shine of lasting daies? 

Resp. He shames himselfe that once assaies 

To fould such wonder in sweete laies. 

Eccho, In sweet laies.


Our hemisphere is ouerrunne, 

With beauty of a second Sunne. 

Eccho. A second Sum. 

w 

WHat second Sun hath raies so bright, 

To cause this vnacquainted light ? 5 

Tis faire Elisaes matchlesse Grace, 

Who with her beanies doth blesse the place, 

Eccho. Doth blesse the place. 

This song being ended, Nereus commanded the fiue Tritons to sound. 

Then came Syluaniis with his attendants from the wood: himselfe 10 

attired, from the midle downewards to the knee, in Kiddes skinnes with 

the haire on, his legges, bodie and face naked, but died ouer with saffron, 

and his head hooded with a goates skin, and two little homes ouer his 

forehead, bearing in his right hand an Oliue tree, and in his left a 

scutchion, whereof I spake somewhat before. His followers were all 15 

couered with Iuy-leaues, and bare in their handes bowes made like darts. 

At their approche neare her Maiesty, Syluanus spake as follovveth, and 

deliuered vp his scutchion, ingrauen with goulden characters, Nereus 

and his traine still continuing near her Highnesse. 

The Oration of Sylua- 20 

nus. 

S Yluanus conies from out the leauy groaues, 

To honor her, whom all the world adores, 

Faire Cinthia, whom no sooner Nature framed, 

And deckt with Fortunes, and with Vertues dower', 25 

But straight admiring what her skill had wrought, 

Sliee broake the mould; thaf neuer Sunne might see 

Thu like to Albions Queene for excellence. 

Vera. O yet devoid of envious blame, 

Thou maist unfold hir sacred name. 

Resp. Tis dread Eliza that faire dame, 

Who filles the golden trump of fame. 

Eccho. Trump of fame. 

Dem. O never may go sweete a Quene, 

See dismall daies or deadly teene. 

Resp. Graunt Heavens hir daies may stil be greene, 

For like to hir was never seene. 

Eccho, Was never seene. 

17 approche] reproche Q 1


Twos not the Tritons ayr-enforcing shell, 

As they perhaps would proudly make theyr vaunt, 

But those faire beames, that shoote from Maiesty, 

Which drew our eyes to wonder at thy worth. 

5 That worth breeds wonder ; wonder holy feare ; 

And holy feare vnfayned reuerence. 

Amongst the wanton dayes of goulden age 

Apollo playing in our pleasant shades, 

And printing oracles in euery leafe, (Knph. ii. 

1o Let fall this sacred scutchion from his brest, 1131.22; 

. King 's 

Wherein is writ, Detur dignissimae. Wel. p. 

0 therefore hold, what heauen hath made thy right, 505) 

/ but in duety yeeld desert her due. 

Nereus. 

15 But see Syluanus where thy hue doth sit. 

Syluanus. 

My sweet Neaera ? was her eare so neare ? 

0 set my hearts delight vpon this banke, 

That in compassion of old sufferance, 

20 Shee may relent in sight of beauties Queene. 

Nereus. 

On this condition shall shee come on shoare. 

That with thy hand thou plight a solemne vow, 

Not to prophane her vndefled state. 

2 5 Syluanus. 

Here, take my hand, and therewithall I vowe 

Nereus. 

That water will extinguish tvanton fire. (M. Bomb. 

iii.4.24-5) 

Nereus in pronouncing this last line, did plucke Syluanus ouer head 

30 and eares into the water, where all the sea Gods laughing, did insult ouer 

him. In the meane while her Maiesty perused the verses written in the 

scutchion, which were these. 

Aoniis prior, & Diuis es pulchrior alti (Woman, 

. . . iii.1.111 - 

AEquoris, ac nymphis es prior Idalijs. 5) 

35 Idalijs prior es nymphis, ac cequoris alti, 

Pulchrior & Diuis, ac prior Aonijs. 

Ouer these verses was this poesy written. Detur dignissimce. 

After that the sea Gods had sufficiently duckt Syluanus, they suffered 

him to creepe to the land, where he no sooner set footing, but crying 

39 ihe m. QQ2 ,3


Reuenge, Reuenge, he and his, begunne a skirmish with those of the 

water, the one side throwing their dartes, and the other vsing their 

squirtes, and the Tritons sounding a pointe of warre. At the last Nereus 

parted the fray with a line or two, grounded on the excellence of her 

Maiestyes presence, as being alwaies friend to peace, and ennemy to 5 

warre. Then Syluanus with his followers, retired to the woods, and 

Nœera his faire loue in the Pinnace, presenting her Maiestie a Sea 

Iewell, bearing the forme of a fanne, spake vnto her as followeth. 

The Oration of faire Necera. 

WHen Neptune late bestowed on me this barke, 10 

And sent by me this present to your Grace: 

Thus Nereus sung, who neuer sings but truth. 

Thine eyes (Nesera) shall in time behold 

A sea-borne Queene, worthy to gouerne Kings, 

On her depends the Fortune of thy boate, 15 

If shee but name it with a blisfull word. 

And view it with her life inspiring beames. 

Her beames yeeld gentle influence, like fayre starres, 

Her siluer sounding word is prophesie. 

Speake sacred Sybill, giue some prosperous name, 2o 

That it may dare attempt a golden fleece, 

Or diue for pearles, and lay them in thy lap. 

For winde and waues, and all the worlde besides, 

Will make her way, whom thou shall doome to blisse, 

For what is Sybils speech, but oracle ? 25 

Here her Maiesty named the Pinnace, the 

Bonaduenture, and Neœra went on with 

her speech, as followeth. 

1 

Now Neseraes barke L fortunate, 

And in thy seruice shall imploy her saile, 3° 

And often make returne to thy auaile. 

0 liue in endlesse toy, with glorious fame, 

Sound Trumpets, sound, in honor of her name. 

Then did Nereus retire backe to his bower with all his traine following 

him, in selfe same order as they came forth before, the Tritons sounding 35 

their Trumpets one halfe of the way, and the Cornets playing the other 

6 with his] being so ugly, and running toward the bower at the end of the 

Pound, affrighted a number of the countiey people, that they ran from him for 

feare, and thereby moved great laughter. His Q 3 29 I om. Q 3

5 


halfe. And here ended the second daies pastime, to the so great liking of 

her Maiestie, that her gracious approbation thereof, was to the Actors 

more then a double reward, and yet withall, her Highnes bestowed a 

largesse vppon them the next daie after before shee departed. 

THE THIRDE 

daies entertainement. 

oN Wednesday morning, about nine of the clock, as her Maiestie 

opened a casement of her gallerie window, there were three 

excellent Musitians, who, being disguised in auncient countrey attire, did 

30 greet her with a pleasant song of Coridon and Phyllida, made in three 

parts of purpose. The song, as well for the worth of the Dittie, as for 

the aptnes of the note thereto applied, it pleased her Highnesse, after it 

had beene once sung, to command it againe, and highly to grace it with 

her chearefull acceptance and commendation. 

15 

The Plowmans Song. 

I N the merrie moneth of May, 

In a mome, by breake of day, 

Forth I walked by the wood side, 

Where as May was in his pride. 

20 There I spied, all alone 

Phyllida and Corydon. 

Much adoe there was God wot, 

He would loue, and she would not. 

She said, neuer man was true: 

25 He said, none was false to you. 

He said, lie had loued Iter long: 

She said, loue should haue no wrong. 

Coridon would h'sse her then: 

She said, maides must h'sse no men, 

30 Till they did for good and all. 

Then she made the shepheard call 

15 The Three Mens Song, sung the third morning, under hir Majesties Gallerie 

window, Q3 17 In] Vp in Rawl.MS.Poet. 85. See Notes 18 Forth . . . side] 

I sawe a troupe of damseles playenge With a troope of damsells playinge 

Forthe they went than one a mayenge Forthe the wode forsooth a-Maying: 

And anon by the wood syde When anon by the wode side 

Rawl MS. Cosens MS. 

19 as] that Rawl. Cos. MSS. 20 I espied Cosens MS. 25 none 

was] neuer Rawl. Cos. MSS. 27 should] cold Cos. MS. 30 did] 

had Rawl. MS.

448 


All tlie heauens to witnesse truth, 

Neuer lou'd a truer youth. 

Thus with many a pretie oath, 

Yea and nay, and faith and troth, 

Such as silly shepheards vse, 5 

When they will not hue abuse, 

Loue, which had beene long deluded, 

Was with kisses sweet concluded: 

And Phyllida with garlands gay, 

Was made the Lady of the May. 10 

The same day after dinner, about three of the clockc, ten of my L. 

of Hertfords seruants, al Somersetshire men, in a square greene Court, 

before her maiesties windowe, did hang vp lines, squaring out the forme 

of a Tennis-court, and making a crosse line in the midle. In this square 

they (beeing stript out of their dublets) played fiue to fiue with the hand- 15 

ball, at bord and cord (as they tearme it) to so great liking of her highnes, 

that she graciously deyned to beholde their pastime more then an houre 

and a halfe. 

After supper there were two delights presented vnto her maiestie: 

curious fire-workes, and a sumptuous banket: the first from the three 20 

Hands in the pond, the second in a lowe Gallerie in her maiesties priuie 

garden. But I will first briefly speake of the fire-works. 

First there was a peale of a hundred Chambers discharged from the 

Snail-mount: in counter wherof, a like peale was discharged from the 

Ship-He, & some great ordinance withall. Then was ther a Castle of 25 

fire-works of al sorts, which played in the Fort. Answerable to that 

ther was in the Snail-mount, a Globe of all maner of fire-works, as big 

as a barrel. When these were spent on either side, there were many 

running rockets vppon lines, which past betweene the Snayle-mount, and 

the Castle in the Fort. On either side were many fire wheeles, pikes of 30 

pleasure, & balles of wilde fire, which burned in the water. 

During the time of these fire-workes in the water, there was a banket 

serued all in glasse and siluer, into the low Gallerie in the Garden, from 

a hill side foureteene score off, by two hundred of my Lord of Hertfordes 

Gentlemen, euerie one carrying so many dishes, that the whole number 35 

amounted to a thousand: and there were to light them in their way, 

a hundred torch-bearers. To satisfie the curious, I will here set downe 

some particulars in the banket. 

2 lou'd] liu'd Cos. MS. 3 Thus] Than Rawl. Cos, MSS. 6 will] 

do Rawl. Cos. MSS. 7 which 1 that Cos. MS. 9 Phyllida] 

the mayde Rawl. Cos. MSS. 10 Was made the] Was made Rawl. MS.: 

Was the Cos. MS. 11 dinne Q 1 my Lord Q 2 : the Earle Q3 

37—P. 449 1. 19 To satisfie ... comfits, of all sorts, om. Q*


Her Maiesties Armes in sugar-worke. 

The seuerall Armes of all our Nobilitie in sugar-worke. 

Many men and women in sugar-worke, and some inforst by hand. 

Castles, Forts, Ordinance, Drummers, Trumpeters, and soldiors of all sorts, in 

5 sugar-worke. 

Lions, Vnicorns, Beares, Horses, Camels, Buls, Rams, Dogges, Tygers, Elephants, 

Anteiops, Dromedaries, Apes, and all other beasts in sugar-worke. 

Egles, Falcons, Cranes, Bustardes, Heronshawes, Bytters, Pheasants, Partridges, 

Quailes, Larkes, Sparrowes, Pigeons, Cockes, Oules, and all that flie, in sugar- 

10 worke. 

Snakes, adders, vipers, frogs, toades, and all kind of wormes, in sugar-worke. 

Mermaides, whales, dolphins, cungars, sturgions, pikes, carps, breams, and all 

sortes of fishes, in sugar-worke. 

All these were standing dishes of sugar-work. The selfe same deuises 

15 were also there all in flat-worke. Moreouer these particulars following, 

and many such like, were in flat sugar-worke, and sinamond 

March-panes, grapes, oisters, muscles, cockles, periwinckles, crabs, lobsters. 

Apples, peares, and plums, of all sorts. 

Preserues, suckats, iellies, leaches, marmelats, pasts comfits, of all sorts. 

THE FOVRTH 

tlaies entertainment. 

ON Thursday morning, her Maiestie was no sooner readie, and at her 

Gallery window, looking into the Garden, but there began three 

Cornets to play certaine fantastike dances, at the measure whereof the 

25 Fayery Queene came into the garden, dauncing with her maides about 

her. Shee brought with her a garland made in fourme of an imperiall 

Crowne; within the sight of her Maiestie, shee fixed (it) vpon a siluer 

stafle, and sticking the stafle into the ground, spake as followeth. 

The speech of the Fairy Queene 

30 to her Maiestie. 

1 

That abide in places vnder ground, 

Aureola, the Queene of Fairy /and, 

That euery night in rings of painted flowers 

Tume round, and carroll out Elisaes name: 

35 Hearings that Nereus and the Syluane Gods 

Haue lately welcomde your Imperiall Grace, 

Oapend the earth with this enchanting wand, 

To doe my duety to your Maiestie. 

27 silvered Q 3 

BOND 1 G g

45° 


And humbly to salute you with this Chaplet, 

Giuen me by Auberon the Fairy King. 

Bright shining Phoebe, that in humaine shape, 

Hitfst heauens .perfection, vouchsafe t' accept it: 

And I Aureola, belorid in heauen, 5 

(For amorous starres fall nightly in my lap) 

Will cause that heauens enlarge thy goulden dayes, 

And cut them short, that enuy at thy praise. 

After this speech, the Fairy Queene and her maides daunced about 

the garland, singing a song of sixe partes, with the musicke of an 10 

exquisite consort; wherein was the Lute, Bandora, Base-violl, Citterne, 

Treble-violl, and Flute, and this was the Fairies song. 

ELisa is the fairest Queene' That euer trod vpon this greene. 

Elisaes eyes are blessed starres, 15 

Inducing peace, subduing warrcs. 

Elisaes hand is christall bright, 

Her wordes are balme, her lookes a?'e light. 

Elisaes brest is that faire hill, 

Where vertue dwcls, and sacred skill, 20 

O blessed bee each day and howe, 

Where sweete Elisa builds her botvi-e. 

This spectacle and Musicke, so delighted her Maiesty, that shee 

desired to see and hear it twise ouer: and then dismist the actors with 

thankes, and with a gracious larges, which of her exceeding goodnesse 25 

shee bestowed vppon them. 

Within an howre after, her Maiesty departed with her Nobles, from 

Eiuetham. On the one side of her way as shee past through the Parke, 

there was placed sitting on the Pond, side, Nereus and all the Sea-gods 

in their former attire: on her left hand, Syluanus and his company: in 30 

the way before her the three Graces, and the three Howres : all of them 

on euerie side wringing their .hands, and shewing signe of sorow for her 

departure. While she beheld this dum shew, the Poet made her a short 

Oration, as followeth. 

1o Garden Q 3 24 desired . . . ouer:] commanded to heare it sung and 

to be danced three times over, and called for divers Lords and Ladies to behold it: 

Q 3 28 After Elvetham. Cf inserts It was a most extreame rain, and yet it 

pleased hir Majestie with great patience to behold and hear the whole action. 

33 After departure, Q 3 inserts he being attired as at the first, saving that his 

cloake was now black, and his garland mixed with ugh branches, to signifie 

soi row.


The Poets speech at her Maiesties 

departure* 

See sweet Cynthia, how the watry gods, 

o Which ioyd of late to view thy glorious beames, 

5 At this retire doe waile and wring their hands. 

Distilling from their eyes, salt showrs of teares, 

To bring in winter with their wet lament: 

For how can Somtner stay, when Sunne departs ? 

See where Syluanus sits, and sadly mournes, 

10 To thifike that Autumn with his withered wings 

Will bring in tempest, when thy beames are hence : 

For how can somtner stay, when Sunne departs ? 

See where those Graces, and those Howrs of heau'n 

Which at thy comming sung triumphall songs, 

15 And smoothd the way, and strewd it with sweet flowrs, 

Now, if they durst, would stop it with greene boives, 

Least by thine absence the yeeres pride decay: 

For how can sommer stay, ivhen Sunne departs ? 

Leaves fal, grasse dies, beasts of the wood hang head, 

20 Birds cease to sing, and euerie creature wailes, 

To see the season alter with this change: 

For how can sommer stay, when Sunne departs ? 

O, either stay, or soone returne againe, 

For sommers parting is the countries paine. 

25 After this, as her Maiestie passed through the Parke gate, there was a 

consort of Musitions hidden in a bower, to whose playing this Dittie 

of Come againe was sung, with excellent diuision, by two, that were 

cunning. 

O Come againe faire Natures treasure, 

30 Whose lookes yeeld ioyes exceeding measure. 

25 Then Nereus, approching from the ende of the Pond, to hir Majesties coach, 

on his knees thanked hir Highnesse for hir late largesse, saying as followeth: 

Thankes, gracious Goddesse, for thy bounteous largesse, 

Whose worth, although it yeelds us sweet Content, 

Yet thy depart gives ns a greater sorrow. Inserted bef. After this Q? 

29 Q 3 gives the following heading and amplified song:—The Song sung at the 

gate, when hir Majestie departed. (As this Song was sung, her Majestie, notwithstanding 

the great raine, staled hir coach, and pulled off hir mask, giving great 

thanks.) 

Come againe, faire Natures treasure, 

"Whose lookes yeeld joyes exceeding measure. 

Come againe, worlds starre-bright eye, 

Whose presence bewtifies the skie. 

Gg 2

452 


0 come againe heaiifts chiefe delight. 

Thine absence makes eternal! night, 

O come againe worlds starbright eye, 

Whose presence doth adorne the skie. 

O come againe sweet beauties Sunne: 5 

When thou art gone, our ioyes are done. 

Her Maiestie was so highly pleased with this and the rest, that shce 

openly protested to my Lord of Hertford, that the beginning, processe, 

and end of this his entertainment was so honorable, as hereafter hee 

should finde the rewarde thereof in her especiall fauour. And manie and io 

most happie yeares may her gratious Maiestie 

continue, to fauour and foster 

him, and all others which 

do truly loue and 

honor her. 1 5 

FINIS. 

Come againe, worlds chiefe Delight, 

Whose absence makes eternall Night. 

Come againe, sweete lively Sunne, 

When thou art gone our joyes are done. 

O come againe, faire Natures treasure, 

Whose lookes yeeld joyes exceeding measure. 

O come againe, heavens chiefe delight, 

Thine absence makes eternall night. 

O come againe. worlds star-bright eye, 

Whose presence doth adorne the skie. 

O come againe, sweet beauties Sunne: 

When thou art gone, our joyes are done. 

8 protested . .. Lord] said to the Earle Q3 9-10 as . . , fauour] she would 

not forget the same Q 3 10 and om. Q3

SPEECHES 

TO 

QUEEN ELIZABETH 

AT 

QUARRENDON. 

August, 1592. 1 

1 Reprinted from An edition by William Hamper with the following title: Masques: Performed 

before Queen Elizabeth. From a coeval copy, in a volume of 

manuscript collections, by Henry Ferrers, Esq., of Baddesley Clinton, in 

the county of Warwick. In the possession of William Hamper, Esq., of 

Birmingham. [Woodcut of a crowned pillar.] "Sol mundi Borealis erat, 

dum vixit, Elisa." Oxford Verses on the Queen's Death, 1603. Chiswick : 

Printed by C. Whittingham, College House. 1820. 4 0 . In tliat edition they 

formed Tarts lland 111 (the editor classing as Part I three speeches printed above, pp. 41 2-4., 

among those at the Ttlt-Tard) ; and were reprinted in Kenilworth Illustrated, 1821 , 

4 0 , and in Niclwls' Progresses (1823), vol. iii. 193-213.

SPEECHES, ETC., 

AT 

QUARRENDON 

AUGUST, 1592. 

AT QUARRENDON 455 

Armes be locked for a time, from all libertie to performe the office of 

his desire, in doing you seruice with his bodey, yet his harte is at 

libertie to pay the homage of his loue. 

In token whereof he hath here sent your Ma tie a simple present Cupido in 

5 of his hartes servis. It is the Image, Madam, of the Idoll that so gowa ana 

manie seme against theire will, and so manie without reward; who 

shutes he wotes not where, and hittes he cares not whom, and seldom 

woundes alike, but soonest striketh the best sighted : which if your 

excellent Ma ie shall vouchsafe any tyme to weare, the Knight 

io wisheth it may be a watch (better than Scarborows warning) to the 

Noble Gentelmen of your Courte, to defend them from such blowes 

as he hath receiued, which may light on them (sooner) then ere the(y) 

loke for it, and when they thinke leaste harme, and make a wounde 

(he knoweth by proofe) more uncurable than is complayned of. 

15 Thus my message being ended; I must, most excellent Ladie, by 

the Commaundement of my mistris, the Queene of the Fayeries, returne 

to my charge ; to follow the inchanted Knight, to beare testimoney 

of his paines and patience, and so must leaue your sacred 

Majestie, whom the Almightye make most lasting, as he hath alreadie 

20 mad you best and most to be beloved. Amen. Amen. 

THE OLDE KNIGHTES TALE, 

Now drowsie sleepe, death's image, ease's prolonger, 

Thow that hast kept my sences windowes closed, 

Dislodge these heauie humors, stay no longer, 

25 For light itself thie darkesom bandes haue losed, 

And of mine eies to better use disposed: 

To better use, for what can better be 

Then substance in the steede of shades to see. 

0 mortall substance of immortall glorie! 

30 To whom all creatures ells are shaddowes demed; 

Vouchsafe an eare unto the woeful storie 

Of him who, whatso eare before he semed, 

Is nowe as you esteme to be estemed: 

And sence himself is of himself reporter 

35 To all your praise, will make his parte the shorter 

Not far from hence, nor verie long agoe, 

The fayrie Queene the fayrest Queene saluted 

12 they] the Hamper and Nickols 

(? Elveth. 

p• 449 )


That euer lyued (& euer may shee soe); 

What sportes and plaies, whose fame is largelie bruted, 

The place and persons were so fitlie shuted: 

For who a Prince can better entertaine 

Than can a Prince, or els a prince's vaine? 5 

• Of all the pleasures there, among the rest, 

(The rest were justes and feates of Armed Knightes), 

Within hir bower she biddes her to a feast, 

Which with enchaunted pictures trim she dightes, 

And on them woordes of highe intention writes: 1o 

For he that mightie states hath feasted, knowes 

Besides theire meate, they must be fedd with shevves. 

Manie there were that could no more but vewe them, 

Many that ouer curious nearer pride. 

Manie would conster needes that neuer knewe them, 15 

Som lookt, som lyked, som questioned, some eyed, 

One asked them too who should not be denied: 

But shee that thwarted, where she durst not strugie, 

To make her partie good was fayne to juggle. 

Forthwith the Tables were conveied hither, 20 

Such power she had by her infernall Arte; 

And I enjoyned to keepe them altogether, 

With speciall charge on them to sett my harte, 

Euer to tarrie, neuer to departe: 

(Cf.p.4ic; Not bowing downe my face upon the grounde, 25 

Endim. Beholding still.the Filler that was crounde. 

I whom in elder tyme she dearelie loued, 

Deare is that loue which nothing can disgrace, 

I that had ofte before her favor proued, 

But knewe not howe such fauoure to embrace, 30 

Yea, I am put in trust to warde this place: 

Sokinde is loue, that being once conceauid, 

It trustes againe, although it were deceaued. 

Seruant, quoth shee, looke upward and beware 

Thou lend not anie Ladie once an eye; 35 

For .diuers Ladies hither will repaire, 

Presuming that they can my charmes untie, 

1 soe] see Hamp. Nick. 14 pride] ue. pryed 16 eyed] aymed Hamp. Knh.


Whose misse shall bring them to unconstancie: 

And happie art thou if thou haue such heede, 

As in anothers harme thine owne to reede. 

But loe unhappie I was ouertaken, 

5 By fortune forst, a stranger ladies thrall, 

Whom when I sawe, all former care forsaken, 

To finde her ought I lost meeself and all, 

Through which neglect of dutie 'gan my fall: 

It is the propertie of wrong consenting 

TO To ad unto the punishment lamenting. 

With this the just revengefull Fayrie Queene, 

As one that had conceaued Anger deepe, 

And therefore ment to execute her teene, 

Resolvde to caste mee in a deadlie sleepe, 

15 No other (sentence) coulde decorum keepe: 

For Justice sayth, that where the eie offended, 

Upon the eye the lawe should be extended. 

Thus haue I longe abode, without compassion, 

The rygor which that wrathefull Judge required; 

20 Till now a straung and suddaine alteration 

Declares the date of my distres expired: {Euph. 1 

222 1.17) 

0 peareles Prince! 0 presence most desired! 

By whose sole resolution this ys found, 

That none but Princes, Princes mindes expounde. 

25 In lue whereof, though far beneath your merrit, 

Accept this woorthles meede that longes thereto, 

It is your owne; and onlie you may weare it, 

The farry queene geue(s) euerie one his due, 

For she that punisht me rewardeth you; 

,30 As for us heare, who nothing haue to paie, 

It is ynough for poore men if they pray. 

Ccelumq' solumq' beavit. 

FINIS. 

15 sentence] Hamper and Nichols leave a blank, as in the original 

(Euph. i. 

189.1.14)

458 


THE SONGE AFTER DINNER AT THE TWO LADIES 

ENTRANCE. 

To that Grace that sett us free, 

Ladies let us thankfull be; 

All enchaunted cares are ceast, 5 

Knightes restored, we releast; 

Eccho change thie mournefull song, 

Greefes to Groues and Caues belong; 

Of our new deliuerie, 

Eccho, Eccho, certifie. 10 

Farwell all in woods that dwell, 

Farwell satyres, nymphes farewell; 

Adew desires, fancies die, 

Farwell ail inconstancie. 

Nowe thrice welcome to this place, 15 

Heauenlie Goddesse! prince of grace ! 

She hath freed us carefull wightes, 

Captiue Ladies, Captiue Knightes. 

To that Grace that sett us free, 

Ladies let us thankfull bee. 20 

FINJS. 

THE LADIES THANKESGEUING FOR THEIRE DELIUERIE FROM 

UNCONSTANCIE. 

Most excellent! shall I saie Ladie or Goddess ! whom I should 

enuie to be but a Ladie, and can not denie to haue the power of 25 

a Goddesse; vouchesafe to accept the humble thankfulnes of vs 

late distressed Ladies, the pride of whose witts was justlie punished 

with the unconstancie of ouer willes, wherebie we were carried to 

delight, as in nothing more than to loue, so in nothing more than 

24 Most excellent . . . Semper eadem (p. 463)] forms the sixth piece in 'The 

Phoenix Nest,' 1593, with title l An Excellent Dialogue betweene Constancie and 

Inconstancie: as it was by speech presented to her maiestie, in the last Progresse at 

Sir llenrie Leighes house; The speech here called The Ladies Thankesgeuing is 

there preceded by the prefix Constancie as if part of the following dialogue•, 

though here both Thanksgiving and preceding Song are proper to others than 

the two Ladies 26 vs Phœt. Nest: the Hamper fr. MS. 28 willes] wits Ph. 

jV. 29 more than] so much as Ph. N.


to chaunge louers; which punishment, though it were onlie due to 

our desertes, yet did it light most heauily upon those Knightes, 

who, following us with the heate of theire affection, had neither 

grace to gett us, nor power to leaue us. Now since, by that 

5 mortall power of your more than humane wisdome, the enchaunted 

tables are read, & both they & we released, let us be punished 

with more than unconstancie if we fayle eyther to loue Constancie, 

or to eternize your memorie. 

LIBERTY. Not to be thankfull to so greate a person, for so greate 

10 a benefite, might argue as little judgement as ill nature; and therefore, 

though it be my turne to speake after you, I will striue in 

thankfulnes to goe before you, but rather for my lybertie, because 

I may be as I lyste, than for anie minde I haue to be more constant 

than I was. 

15 CONSTANCY. If you haue no minde to be constant, what ys the 

benefite of your deliuerie ? 

Li. As I sayd before, my liberties, which I esteeme as deare as 

my selfe; for, though I esteme unconstancie, yet I must hate that 

which I loue best, when I am once inforced unto yt; and, by your 

20 leaue, as dayntie as you make of the matter, you would hate euen 

your owne selfe yf you were but wedded unto your selfe. 

Co. Selfe loue ys not that loue that we talke of, but rather the 

kinde knitting of twoe hartes in one, of which sorte yf you had 

a faithfull louer what should you lose by being faithfull unto him ? 

25 Li, More than you shall gett by being so. 

Co. I seeke nothing but him to whom I am constant. 

Li. And euen him shall you lose by being constant. 

Co. What reason haue you for that ? 

Li. No other reason than that which is drawen from the comon 

30 places of Loue, which are for the most parte Reason beyond Reason. 

2 desertes] discents Ph. N. 5 more than bef mortall Ph. N. 8 eternize] 

alienize Ph. N. 9 LIBERTY] SO Hamper translates Li. of MS.: Inconstancie Ph. 

N. throughout 11 turne] place Ph. N. 12 yet aft. but Ph. N. 15 CON 

STANCY] Co. H. N. 17 sayd] tolde you Ph. N. libertie Ph. N. esteeme as 

deare as J loue better than Ph. N. 18 esteme] loue Ph. N. unconstancie ... 

must] inconstancie as my selfe, and had as leeue not be, as not be vnconstant; 

yet can I not but Ph. N. 19 best om. Ph. A r . when . . . once] but 

when I am Ph. N. 20-1 you would . . . owne] I am perswaded that you 

would euen hate your Ph. N. 23 kinde] kinde of Ph. N. 24 faithfull 2 

Ph. N.: unconstant Hamper and Nichols

460 . ENTERTAINMENTS 

Co. You may better call them Reason without Reason, if they 

conclude that faith & lotie the more they are the lesse they shall 

flnde. 

Li. Will you beleue your own experience ? 

Co. Far beyonde your reason. 5 

Li. Haue you not then founde among your louers that they 

(Enph.il woulde flie you when you did most followe them, & follow you 

l-iPo^ms when you did most fly them ? 

vol. iii. 474 Co. I graunt I haue founde it true in some, but nowe I speake of 

' 2 -3) a constant Louer in deede. 10 

Li. You may better speake of him, than finde him, but the onlie 

way to haue him is to be unconstant. 

Co. How so ? 

(Euph. i. Li. I haue heard Philosophers saye that Acquinto termino cessat 

' 35) motus. There is no motion, and you know Loue is a motion, but it 15 

resteth, or rather dieth, when it hath gotten his end. Now Loue ys 

dull without feare of loosing, which can not be where there are no 

rivalls. 

Co. It were against nature for her, which is but one, to loue more 

than one; and if it be a fault to beare a double harte, what is it to 20 

devide the harte among manie ? 

Li. I aske no other judge than Nature, especiallie in this matter 

of Loue, than the whiche there is nothing more naturall; and, as 

farr as I can see, Nature is delighted in nothing so muche as in 

varietie. And it were harde that sence she hath appoynted varietie 25 

of coullers to please the eye, varietie of soundes for the eare, variete 

of meates for euerie other sence, she should binde the harte, to the 

which all the rest do seruice, to the loue of one; rather than the 

1 rather Ph. N. 2 that loue and faith Ph. N. are] haue Ph. N. 

6 amongst Ph. N. 7 when ... mostj if you do but Ph. N. most aft. 

you* Ph. N. 8 did] do Ph. N. 9 too bef. true Ph. N. I now Ph. N. 

14 Acquisitio Hamper and Nichols: Inquisito Ph. N. 16 resteth] ceaseth 

Ph. N. 16-7 Now ... be] and to say the truth, loue hath no edge when it is 

assured, whose verie foode and life is hope, and hope of hauing, is dull without the 

feare of loosing, Ph. N. 19 Co. It] bef. this speech Ph.N. inserts Const. 

But the more constant he flndes me, the more carefull he will be to deserue well of 

me. Inconst. You deceiue your selfe with that conceite, and giue him no small 

aduantage to range where he listeth, when you let him know that you are at his 

deuotion, whom you shall be sure to haue at yours, if by an indifferent cariage of 

your selfe, you breede an emulation betweene him and others. 23 the om. 

Ph. N. 23-4 as farr as] surely for any thing that Ph. N. 24 delighieth 

Ph. N. . 26 to please] for Ph. N. 27 for] for the mouth, and varietie 

of other things for Ph. N. the 2 om. Ph. N. 28 rather than] any 

more, than she bindeth Ph. N.


eye to one couller, the eare to one sounde, or the mouth to one 

kinde of meate. 

Co. Neyther doth she denie the harte varietie of choyce, she onely 

requireth Constancie when it hath chosen. 

5 Li. What yf we comitt an error in our choyse ? 

Co. It is no error to chuse where wee like. 

Li. But if our lyking varrie may we not be better aduised ? 

Co. When you haue once chosen, you must tourne your eyes 

inwarde to looke onlie on him that you haue placed in your harte. 

10 Li. Whie then I perceaue you haue not yet chosen, for your eyes 

looke outwardes; but, as long as your eyes do stande in your heade 

as they doe, I doubt not but to finde you inconstant. 

Co. I doe not denie but I loke upon other men, besides him that 

I loue best, but they are all as dead pictures unto me, for anie power 

15 they haue to touch mine harte. 

Li. If they were as you account them, but dead pictures, they 

were lykelie to make another Pigmalion of you, rather than you 

would be botinde to the loue of one. But what if that one do proue 

inconstant ? 

20 Co. I had rather the fault should be his than mine. 

Li. It is a coulde comforte to saie the fault is his, when the 

losse ys youres. But how can you avoyde the fault that may helpe 

it, & will not ? 

Co. I see no way to helpe it, but by breach of faithe, which I holde 

25 dearer than my lyfTe. 

Li. What is the band of thy faith ? 

Co. My worde. 

Li. Your worde ys winde, & no sooner spoken than gonne. 

Co. Yet doth it binde to see what is spoken donne. 

3° Li. You can do lyttle yf you cannot maister your worde. 

Co. I should do lesse yf my worde did not maister me. 

Li It maisters you in deede, for it makes you a slaue. 

Co. To none but one whome I chuse to serue. 

Li. It is basenes to serue though it be but one. 

35 Co. More base to dissemble with more than one. 

4 requires Ph. N. 6 error] fault Ph. N. 11 do om. Ph. K 

13 other men] others Ph. N. 14 as om. Ph. N. 15 my Ph. N. 

16 were but (as you account them) Ph. N. 16-7 they ... to] I do 

not doubt, but they would Ph. N. 18 onely aft. one 1 Ph. N. do om. 

Ph. N. 20 had] would Ph. N. 21 coulde] small Ph. N. 22 

that may] who can Ph. N. 26 your Ph. N. 28 but bef, winde Ph., N.


Li. When I loue all alyke I dissemble with none. 

Co. But if I loue manie will anie loue me ? 

Li. No doubt they will, & so much the more by howe much the 

more they are that serue for you. 

Co. But the harte that is euerie where, is in deede no where. 5 

Li. If you speake of a mannes harte I graunt it; but the harte of 

a woman is lyke a soule in a bodie: Tota in toto, et iota in qualibet 

parte. So that, although you had as manie loners as you haue 

fingers and toes, you might be one among them all, and yett wholy 

euerie ones. But, sence I perceiue you are so peruersely deuoted to 10 

the could synceritie of ymaginarie constancie, I leaue you to be as 

you maye, minding meeselfe to be as I liste. 

Neuerthelesse to your Ma tie by whom I was sett at libertie, in 

token of my thankfullnes, I offer this simple woorke of mine owne 

handes, which you may weare as you please; but I made them to be 15 

(Euph. i. worne, after mine owne minde, loose. 

179 11. 8, 9) co And I,who by your coming am not only sett at libertie, but 

made partaker also of Constancie, do present you with as vnworthie 

a work of mine owne handes; which yett I hope you will better 

accept, because it may serue to binde the loosenes of that incon- 20 

stant Dames token. 

Li. To binde the loosenes & that of an inconstant Dame! Say 

no more than you knowe, for you cannot knowe so much as I feele. 

(Saph. i. 4. Well may we betray ourselues betweene ourselues, and think we 

.41sqq.;4.65sqq., all. But now a greater 25 

lI 5) power than eyther your or my reason woorketh in me, & draweth me 

from the circle of my fancies to the centre of true Loue; there representing 

unto me what contentment it is to loue but one, & howe 

the heart is satisfied with no number, when once it loueth more than 

one. I am not, I cannot be, as I was; the leaue that I take 3° 

1 I (bis)] you Ph. N. 3 they] there Ph. N. 4 serue] striue Ph. N. 

6 to be true aft. it Ph. N. but] but as for Ph. N. 7 is] it 

is Ph. N. 8 So that, although] that though Ph. N. 9 but one amongst 

Ph.N. TO sence ... so] because I see you are Ph.N. 12 minding] 

and purpose Ph. N. 13 was... at] haue obtained this Ph. N. 15 

them] it Ph. N 16 after . .. minde transposed with to be worne Ph. N. 

18 vnworthie Ph.N.: woorthie Hamper and Nichols 20 will Ph.N. 23 

cannot knowe] knowe not Ph. N. 24 bewray Ph. N. and think] as 

thinking Ph. N. 25 neuer ... when] said nothing, vntill Ph. N 26 

eyther om. Ph. N. worketh in me transposed with than your... reason 

Ph. N. &] which Ph. N. 27 circle of my Ph. N.: om.IIamper and 

Nichols true true] constant Ph. N. 29 the heart] desire Ph. N. 

loueth] delighteth in Ph. N. 30 Bef. I 1 Ph. N. places new prefix 

Const. leaue Ph. N: loane H. N. did bef. take Ph. N.


of my selfe, is to leaue myselfe, & to chaunge, or rather to be 

chaunged, to that state which admitteth no change, by the secrett 

power of her who though she were content to lett us be carried 

almost owt of breth by the winde of Inconstancie, dothe nowe with 

5 her scilence put mee to scilence; & with the gloriouse beame of 

her countenaunce, which disperceth the flying cloudes of vaine concedes, 

enforceth me to wishe others, & to be myselfe, as shee is— 

Semper eadem. 

Finis of this Dialogue. 

10 THE LAST SONGE. 

Happie houre, happie daie, 

That Eliza came this waie! 

Greate in honor, great in place, 

Greater yet in geving grace, 

15 Greate in wisdome, great in minde, 

But in bothe aboue her kinde, 

Greate in vertue, greate in name, 

Yet in power beyond her fame. 


20 That Eliza came this waie ! 

25 

She, with more than graces grace, 

Hath made proude this humble place, 

She, with more than wisdomes head, 

Hath enchaunted tables read, 

She, with more than vertues mighte, 

Hath restorid us to right. 


That Eliza came this waie ! 

Heauie harted Knightes are eased, 

30 And light harted Ladies pleased, 

Constant nowe they vowe to be, 

Hating all inconstancie. 

Constant Piller, constant Crowne, 

Is the aged Knightes renowne. 

I is . . . myselfe om. Hamper and Nichols 2 estate Ph. N. 3 who] 

which Ph. N. us] me Ph. N. 4 by] with Ph. N. with] in Ph. N. 

5 with . .. beame] by the glorie Ph. N. 7 enforceth . .. wishe] commands 

me too with Ph»N*



That Eliza came this waie! 

FINIS. 

 

THE SECOND DAIES WOORKE WHERE THE CHAPLAYNE MAKETH 5 

THIS RELATION. 

Da mihi qtiicqiud habes, animumq' fidemq' manumq' 

Hec tria si mihi des, das mihi quicquid hades. 

Elizce. laudes, et vox et lingua loqimtur. 

THE ORATION. 10 

Most excellent Princes! Princes of excellencie! whom God 

framed in heauen to grace his woorkmanshippe on earth, & whose 

gratiouse abiding with us belowe is priuileged by the singular grace of 

God aboue ! Vouchsafe, I beseeche you, from the matcheles heighte 

of your royall graces, to loke downe on the humble dwelling of an 15 

owlde Knight, now a newe religiouse Hermite; who, as heretofore 

he professed the obedience of his youthe, by constant seruice of the 

worldes best Creature, so at this present presentethe the deuotion of 

his yeares by continuali seruing of the worldes onlie Cre(a)tor. In 

the one, kind judgment was the usher, & beleefe the follower of his 20 

sounde loue: in the other, meditation is the forerunner, & zeale 

the usher, of this streite lyfe. This solitary man, Loricus, for such 

is his condicion & so is he called, one whose harde aduentures were 

once discouered, and better fortune foreshewed, by a good father of 

his owne coate, not farr from this Coppies, rann the restles race of 25 

desire, to seeke content in the state pf perfections ; comaunding his 

thoughtes & deedes to tender theire dutie & make solemne sacrifices 

to the Idoll of his harte, in as manie partes as his minde had passions, 

yet all to one ende, because all from one grounde, to wit, the 

consent of his affections. Sometymes he consorted with couragious 30 

gentelmen, manifesting inward joyes by open justes, the yearlie 

tribute of his dearest Loue. Somtimes he summoned the witnesse 

of depest conceiptes, Himmes & Songes & Emblemes, dedicating 

them to the honor of his heauenlye Mistres. Sometymes by lyking


drawen to looking, he lost himselfe in the bottomles vewe of unparragonized 

vertues, eche good ymagination ouertaking other with 

a better, and the best yelding a degree aboue the best, when they 

all were deemed too weake for her woorth which ouerweyeth all 

5 worthinesse. 

Thus spent he the florishe of his gladdest dayes, crauing no 

rewarde ells, but that he might loue, nor no reputation beside but 

that he might be knowne to Loue; till the two enimies of Prosperitie, 

Enuie and Age, (the one greuing at him, & the other grow- 

10 ing on him,) cutt him off from following the Cowrte, not from goyng 

forwarde in his course. Thence, willingly unwilling, he retired his 

tyred lymes into a corner of quiet repose, in this Countrie, where he 

lyued priuate in cœlestiall contemplation of manie matters together, 

and, as he once told me, seriouslie kept a verie courte in his owne 

15 bosome, making presence of her in his soule, who was absent from 

his sight. Amongst manie other exercises (whereof feruent desire 

ys not scant) he founde it noe small furtheraunce of diuine speculation 

to walke thorow by-pathes & uncoth passages, under the coole 

shaddowes of greene trees. 

20 And one daie aboue the rest, as he ranged abrode, hauing forgotten 

himself in a long sweet rauishment, his feete wandring astray 

when his mind went right, he hit by chaunce on a homelie Cell of 

mine which (I) had helde a little space, to my greate solace, & 

taking mee on a soddaine at my ordinarie Orisons;—By your leaue, 

2 5 verteouse Sir, quoth he, where lyes the highe-waie I pray you. 

Marry here, gentell Knight (sayde I) looking on my booke with 

mine eyes, & poyntyng up to heauen with my finger; it is the very 

Kinges hie-waye. You saye true in deede (quoth he) the verie 

Queene's hie-waye, which my harte inquired after though my tongue 

30 asked for another. And so, as ; t is the use with fellowe humors 

when they fortunately meete, we light bothe upon one argument, the 

universall fame of that miraculouse gouerment, which by truthe 

& peace, the harbengers of heauen, directeth us the verie waye to 

eternall blessedness. Much good discourse had we more, of the 

35 vanitie of the world, the uncertainetie of frendes, the unconstancie of 

fortune; but the upshoot of all was this, that he would become an 

Heremite, I should be his Chaplaine, & both joyntlie joyne in 

prayers for one prince, & the prayses of one god. To which purpose, 

because this plott pleased him, hee here forthwith erected 

16 execercises Hamper 

BOND 1 H h


a poore Loddging or twoe, for me, himselfe, & a page, that wayteth 

on him, naming it when he had donne the Crowne Oratory; and 

therefore aduaunsed his deuise on the entrance after the Romaine 

(Cf. pp. fashion in a Piller of perpetuall remembraunce. But, alas! whilst 

End iii4 seekes to raise one buylding, hee sees the rewins of another; 5 

355) & whilst he shapes a monument for his minde, he feeles the miserie 

of his bodie, whose roofe was roughe with the mosse of greene 

haires, whose sides were crased with the tempestes of sicknes, 

whose foundacion shooke under him with the waight of an unwildye 

carrcasse: and when he perceaued his olde house in a man-10 

ner past reparacions, considering his owne unablenes, he recomended 

the care thereof to the conningest Architect of the Worlde, who 

onlie was able to pull it downe unto the earth, & raise it anewe, in 

better glorie than it stoode before. Then began I to call him to his 

former preceptes, & his latter practizes, shewing him in fewe woordes 15 

(for he conceaued much) that nowe was the time of tryali. A good 

sayler was better seene in a storme than in a calme. It was no 

straunge thing to lyue; for slaues lyue, and beastes lyue too. Nature 

had prouided him comforte, who made that most common which 

shee had made most greeuouse; to the ende the equallnes might 20 

aleye the egernes of death. To which he mildelie replied that my 

motions fytlie touched him, he was as desirouse to encounter with 

Death, as to heare of Death, for Fortitude still abode his bedfellowe. 

Extremitie though it could not be ouercom yet it might be 

ouerborne, since his Minde had secured him by fearing nothing, and 25 

oueriched him by desiring nothing. Hee had longe lyued in the 

Sea, and ment now to die in the Hauen. Hauen (saide I). Yea! 

the Hauen (quoth he); lett me be carried into the Hauen. Which 

Hauen I supposed he hadd spoken idellie, but that he eftsones 

repeted it, and wished to be brought to this poore houell before the 30 

gates. What thatt odde corner (saide I). Yes (quoth he) that 

corner; and angerlie broke of with this Sentence: Subsilire in coelum 

ex Angulo licet. 

So we speedelie remoued him hither, wher being softely layed he 

uttered these speeches softelie .-—Before I was olde, I desired to 35 

lyue well, and now I am olde, I desire to die well; and to die well 

is to die willinglie. Manie there be that wish to lyue, yet wott not 

how to die: lett me be theire example yf they lyke not lyfe, to lyue, 

to die with lyking, who neither embraced Fortune when shee flewe 

29 I (twice) Hamper


unto mee, nor ensued Fortune when she fled from mee, nor spared 

niggardlie, nor spent lavishlie, whatsoeuer she bestowed on me: but 

since it was my singuler hope to lyue beholding to the Crowne, 

I accompt it my speciall joye to dye beholding the Crowne. Holy 

5 Crowne! hallowed by the sacrament, confirmed by the fates; thou 

hast been the Aucthor of my last Testament. So calling for pen 

and inke (which were neuer far off) he drew a formall draught of his 

whole will, signed & subscribed by himselfe, but witnessed by us, 

the compassionate spectators of that lamentable action which he had 

10 no sooner entituled by wayes of truste, & geuen me charge for the 

safe deliuering thereof, but he fell soddenlye speecheles & so continued 

to this houre. The stile runnethe thus: To the most renouned 

Queene owner of the best Croivne & crowned with the best 

desertes, the lyuing loue of dying Loricus. Now, most peereles 

15 Princes, sence there is none that can laie challenge to this tytle, 

except they should also challenge your vertues, which were to complaine 

of Nature for robbing herselfe to do you right, accept I 

beseeche you the offer of him who dares not offer it to anie other; 

& one daie no doubt but the Knight himselfe, if happilie he recouer 

20 (as what may not so sacred a prince promise), will say it is in a good 

hand, & proue the best expounder of his owne meaning. In the 

meane season, thoughe myne endevors must be employed about 

your sick seruant, yet my prayers shall not ceasse for your most 

gratiouse Majestie, that as you haue ouer liued the vaine hope of 

25 your forraine enemies, so you may outlast the kinde wishes of your 

loyall subjectes, which is to last to the last euerlasting. Amen. 

Finis. 

To the most renowned Queene, 

Owner of the best Crowne, & crowned with the 

30 best desertes, the lyuing Loue of dying 

Loricus. 

I Loricus, Bodie sicke, 

Sences sounde, Remembraunce quicke, 

Neuer crauing, euer seruing, 

35 Little hauing, lesse deseruing, 

Though a hartie true wellwiller 

Of the Crowne & crowned Piller, 

To that Crowne, my lyues content, 

Make my Will & Testament. 

Hh 2


Soule! goe first to heauenlie rest; 

Soule the Bodies heauenlie gueste, 

Where, both Host & Inn decaying, 

Yeld the gueste no quiet staying. 

Bodie! back againe, departe; 5 

Earth thou wast, & Earth thou arte. 

Mortall creatures still be jurneing, 

From the earth to earth returning. 

As for anie worldlie lyuing 

Nothing haue I woorth the geeuing: 10 

Let the baser indeed take them, 

We which follow God forsake them. 

But if anie wishe to dwell, 

As I did, in homely Cell, 

Let him pull his Castells downe, 15 

And as I did serue the Crowne. 

Serue the Crowne, O Crowne deseruing, 

Better than Loricus seruing. 

In witness whereof I haue set to my 

hande & harte, 20 

LORICUS, Columnae coronatae Custos 

fldelissimus. 

In presence of us whose names are underwritten, 

STELLATUS, Rectoriæs Coronatæ Capellanus. 

RENATUS, Equitis Coronati Servus obseruantissimus. 25 

THE PAGE BRINGETH TYDINGS OF HIS MAISTER'S RECOUERIE, 

& PRESENTETH HIS LEGACIE. 

The suddaine recouerie of my distressed Maister, whome latelie 

you left in a Traunce (Most excellent Princes !) hath made me at 

one tyme the hastie messenger of three trothes, your miracle, his 30 

mending, & my mirthe. Miracles on the sicke are seldom seene 

without theire mending; & mending of the good ys not often seene 

without other mens mirth. Where your Majestie hath don a miracle, 

& it can not be denied, I hope I may manifest (mirth) & it shall not 

be disliked : for miracles are no miracles unlesse they be confessed, & 35 

mirth is no mirth yf it be concealed. 

18 than] that Hamper and Nichols


May it therefor please you to heare of his life who lyues by you, & 

woulde not liue but to please you; in whom the sole vertue of your 

sacred presence, which hath made the weather fayre, & the ground 

fruitfull at this progresse, wrought so strange an effect and so speedie 

5 an alteration, that, whereas before he seemed altogether speecheles, 

now Motion (the Recorder of the Bodies Commonwealth) tells a 

lyuelie tale of health, & his Tongue (the Cocheman of the Harte) 

begun to speake the sweete language of affection. So tourning him 

selfe about to the ayre & the lyght, 0 wretched man [quoth he] 

10 callamities storie, lyfes delay, & deathes prisoner: with that he 

pawsed a while & then fixing his eyes on the Crowne, he sayd 

Welcom be that blessed Companie, but thrise blessed be her coming 

aboue the rest, who came to geue me this blessed rest! 

Hereat Stellatus, his Chappelaine, besought him to blesse God 

15 onelie, for it was Gods spirite who recouered his spirites. Truthe 

(quoth he again) yet whosoeuer blesseth her, blesseth God in her: 

and euer blessed be God for her.—The conferrence continued long, 

but louinglie, betwixt them; till at length upon question to whom 

the Will was directed, with knowledge how it was deliuered, Loricus 

20 publiklie acknowledged the right performance of his true meaning 

unto your Royall Majestie, to whom he humblie recomended the 

full execution thereof, & by me hath sent your Majestye this simple 

Legacie, which he disposed the rather whilst he yet lyueth, than lefte 

to be disposed after his deathe, that you might understande how he 

25 alwaies preferred the deed. Thus much your diuine power hath (Kycotc, 

performed to him, thus far his thankfulnes hath brought mee to p.485 1. 9) 

Your Majestic As for anie other Accomplementes, whatsoeuer 

Dutie yeldes to be debt, Deuotion offers to be dischardged; and if 

my maister's best payment be onlie good prayers, what need more 

30 than the Pages bare woorde, which is allwaies -Amen. 

THE LEGACYE. 

Item. I bequethe (to your Highnes) THE WHOLE MANNOR OF 

LOUE, & the appurtenaunces thereunto belonging: 

(Viz.) Woodes of hie attemptes, 

35 Groues of humble seruice, 

Meddowes of greene thoughtes, 

Pastures of feeding fancies, 

Arrable Lande of large promisses,


Riuers of ebbing & flowing fauors, 

Gardens hedged about with priuate, for succorie, & bordered 

with tyme: of greene nothing but hartesease, 

drawen in the perfect forme of a true louers knott. 

Orchards stored with the best fruit: 5 

Queene Apples, Pome Royalls, & 

Soueraigne Peares. 

Fishing for dayntie Kisses with smyling countenances, 

Hawking to springe pleasure with the spanniells of kindenes. 

Hunting that deare game which repentance followeth. 10 

Ouer & beside the Royaltie: for 

Weftes of fearefull dispaire, 

Strayes of wandring conceiptes, 

Fellons goods of stolne delightes, 

Coppie Holders which allure by wittee writinges, 15 

Or Tennantes at will who stand upon good behauior. 

The Demaines being deepe sighes, 

And the Lordes House a pittifull harte. 

And this Mannor is helde in Knightes seruice, 

As may be gathered from the true Receauour of fayre 20 

Ladies, and seene in the auncient deedes of amorouse 

Gentelmen. 

All which he craueth may be annexed to his former Will, 

and therewith approued in the prerogatiue Courte of 

Your Majesties acceptance. 25 

In wittnes whereof I haue putt to my hande & 

seale; 

LORICUS, Columnae coronatae Custos 

fidelissimus. 

In the presence of us whose names are here 30 

under written: 

STELLATUS, Rectoriae coronatæ Capellanus. 

RENATUS, Equitis coronati Servus 

obseruantissimus. 

2 qy, ? trs. priuate and succorie

SPEECHES 1 

DELIVERED TO 

HER MAIESTIE THIS 

LAST PROGRESSE, AT THE 

Right Honorable the Lady RVSSELS, at 

Bissam, the Right Honorable the Lorde 

CHANDOS, at Sudley, at the Right 

Honorable the Lord NORRIS, at 

Ricorte. 

At Oxforde, Printed by Ioseph Barnes. 

1592. 

1 EDITIONS—(1) - Q. I592-, 4°. Title as above. 12 leaver A-C4 in fours, verso of last 

leaf blanks No col. (Br. mus.: p,ess-mark C. 33. e. 7 (19) (under ' Elizabeth, 

2ueen,' &c.) : lacks title-page—a collotype reproduction inserted from some other copy— 

and leaf B.) 

(2) I592, 4 0 . Title quoted under (3). 

(3) =N. Reprint of (2.) in Nichols' 'Progresses,' 1788 (vol. ii), with title—Speeches 

deliveied to Her Majestie This Last Progresse, at the Right Honourable the 

Lady Russels, at Bissam; the Right Honourable the Lorde Chandos, at 

Sudley •, at the Right Honourable the Lord Norris, at Ricorte. At Oxforde, 

Printed by Joseph Barnes. 1592. 

(4)=Br. Reprint of (2) with modernized spelling, and Introduction Ly Sir Sam. E. 

Brydges (Lea Priory Press, l8l5, 4 0 ). 

(5) =N. Reprint of (2.) in Nichols' Second Ed. 1823 (vol. iii. pp. 130-43, 168-72). 

N.B.—N. in footnotes means both eds. of Nichols: the date distinguishes them where 

necessary.

TO THE READER. 

I gathered these copies in loose papers I know not how imperfect, 

therefore must I crave a double pardon; of him that penned them, 

and those that reade them. The matter of small moment, and 

therefore the offence of no great danger. 5 

I Followed 

(AT BISHAM.) 

At the top of the Hill going to Bissam, the 

Cornets sounding in the Woods, a 

wilde man came forth and vt- 10 

tered this speech. 

this sounde, as enchanted; neither knowing the reason 

why, nor how to bee ridde of it: vnusuall to these Woods, and 

(I feare) to our gods prodigious. Syluanus whom I honour, is runne 

into a Caue : Pan, whom I 'enuye, courting of the Shepheardesse: 15 

Enuie I thee Pan ? No, pitty thee, an eie-sore to chast Nymphes; 

yet still importunate: Honour thee Syluanus ? No, contemne thee: 

•fearefull of Musicke in the Woods, yet counted the god of the 

Woods. I, it may bee more stout, than wise, asked, who passed 

that way ? what he or shee ? none durst answere, or would vouch- 20 

safe, but passionate Eccho, who saide Shee. And Shee it is, and 

you are Shee, whom in our dreames many yeares wee Satyres haue 

seene, but waking could neuer finde any such. Euery one hath 

tolde his dreame and described your person, all agree in one, and 

set downe your vertues: in this onely did wee differ, that some saide 25 

(Euph. ii. your Pourtraiture might be drawen, other saide impossible: some 

203-5,211) thought your vertues might be numbred, most saide they were 

infinite: Infinite, and impossible, of that side was I: and first in 

1-6 To the Reader.,. danger. I.B. not in Q; may have occupied verso of lost 

title-page, A ij begins with the Bisham speeches 

I.B.

AT BISHAM 473 

humility to salute you most happy I: my vntamed thoughts waxe 

gentle, & I feele in my selfe ciuility, A thing hated, because not 

knowen, and vnknowen, because I knew not you. Thus Vertue 

tameth fiercenesse, Beauty, madnesse. Your Maiesty on my knees 

5 will I foliowe, bearing this Club, not as a Saluage, but to beate 

downe those that are. 

At the middle of the Hill sate PAN, and two 

Virgins keeping sheepe, and sowing in 

their Samplers, where her Maie- 

10 stye stayed and heard this. 

Pan. pRety soules and bodies too, faire shephardisse, or sweete 

L Mistresse, you know my suite, loue, my vertue, 

Musicke, my power, a godhead. I cannot tickle the sheepes gutts 

of a Lute, bydd, bydd, bydd, like the calling of Chickins, but for {Mid. iv. 

15 a Pipe that squeeketh like a Pigg, I am he. How doe you burne 1.129-31) 

time, & drowne beauty in pricking of clouts, when you should bee 2241. 5; 

penning of Sonnets ? You are more simple than the sheepe you 320 1.1; 

keepe, but not so gentle. I loue you both, I know not which best, i. 3, 60) 

and you both scorne me, I know not which most. Sure I am, that (Euph.ii133 11.3-• 

20 you are not so young as not to vnderstand loue, nor so wise as to 4) 

withstand it, vnlesse you think your selues greater tha gods, whereof 

I am one. Howe often haue I brought you Chestnuts for a loue 

token, & desired but acceptance for a fauour. Little did you knowe 

the misterye, that as the huske was thornye and tough, yet the meate (Euph. ii. 

I32 ll.13- 

25 sweete, so though my hyde were rough and vnkempt, yet my heart 

was smooth and louing: you are but the Farmers daughters of the 

Dale, I the God of the flocks that feede vpon the hils. Though 

I cannot force loue, I may obedience, or else sende your sheepe (End.v.3. 

a wandring, with my fancies. Coynesse must be reuenged with 2 3 2) 

30 curstnesse, but be not agaste sweet mice, my godhead cometh so 

fast vpon me, that Maiestye had almost ouerrun affectio, Can you 

loue ? Wil you ? 

Syb. Alas poore Pan, looke how he looketh Sister, fitter to drawe (Cowd. p. 

in a Haruest wayne, then talke of loue to chaste Virgins, WQuld you 4 22 l • 2 5) 

35 haue vs both? 

Pan. I, for oft I haue hearde, that two Pigeons may bee caught (Euph. ii. 

173 1. 23 

with one beane. 

14 itals. first in Nuhols 23 acquaintance Bn 25 vnkempt] hateful N(1823)


Isab, And two Woodcocks with one sprindge. 

Syb And many Dotterels with one dance. 

Isab. And all fooles with one faire worde. Nay, this is his 

meaning; as he hath two shapes, so hath he two harts, the one of 

(End. ii. 2. a man wherewith his tongue is tipped, dissembling; the other of a 5 

6-8) beast, wherewith his thoughts are poysoned, lust. Men must haue 

as manie loues, as they haue hart-strings, and studie to make an 

Alphabet of mistresses, from A. to Y. which maketh them in the 

end crie, Ay. Against this, experience hath prouided vs a remedy, 

to laugh at them when they know not what to saie, and when they 10 

speake, not to beleeue them. 

Pan. Not for want of matter, but to knowe the meaning, what is 

wrought in this sampler ? 

{Euph. i. Syb. The follies of the Gods, who became beastes, for their affec- 

236 11.1c- tions. 

17; Gall. 15 

ii. 2.19- Pan. What in this ? 

20) Isab. The honour of Virgins who became Goddesses, for their 

chastity. 

Pan. But what be these ? 

Syb. Mens tongues, wrought all with double stitch but not one 20 

true. 

Pan. What these? 

(Theob. Isab. Roses, EglStine, harts-ease, wrought with Queenes stitch, 

Wpp. 4I7-8) and all right. 

Pan. I neuer hard the odds betweene mens tongues, and 25 

weomens, therefore they may be both double, vnlesse you tell mee 

how they differ. 

(Camp.iv. Syb. Thus, weomens tongues are made of the same flesh that 

2.24) their harts are, and speake as they thinke : Mens harts of the flesh 

2. 52-6) that their tongues, and both dissemble, But prythy Pan be packing, 30 

thy words are as odious as thy sight, and we attend a sight which is 

more glorious, then the sunne rising. 

Pan. What doth Iupiter come this waies ? 

Syb. No, but one that will make Iupiter blush as guilty of his 

vnchast iugglings; and Iuno dismaide, as wounded at her Maiesty. 35 

What our mother hath often tolde vs, and fame the whole world, 

cannot be concealed from thee; if it be, we wil tell thee, which may 

hereafter make thee surcease thy suite, for feare of her displeasure, 

and honour virginitye, by wondering at her vertues. 

9 Ay itals. first N. 33 does N,

AT BISHAM 475 

Pan. Say on sweete soule! 

Syb. This way commeth the Queene of this Islande, the wonder (Cowdray, 

423 ; 

of the world, and natures glory, leading affections in fetters, Vir- pz 

ginities slaues: embracing mildnes with Iustice, Maiesties twinns. 44-5) 

5 In whom nature hath imprinted beauty, not art paynted it; in 

whome wit hath bred learning, but not without labour; labour 

brought forth wisedome, but not without wonder. By her it is {Pan) 

that all our Carttes that thou seest, are laden with Corne, when in (Euph. ii. 

other countries they are filled with Harneys: that our horses are ' 21011.14- 

10 ledde with a whipp, theirs with a Launce: that our Riuers flow with 

fish, theirs with bloode: our cattel feede on pastures, they feede on 

pastures like cattel: One hande she stretcheth to Fraunce, to weaken 

Rebels; the other to Flaunders, to strengthen Religion; her heart 

to both Countries, her vertues to all. This is shee at whom Enuie 

15 hath shott all her arrowes, and now for anger broke her bow, on 

whom God hath laide all his blessinges, & we for ioy clappe our 

hands, heedlesse treason goeth hedlesse; and close trechery restlesse: 

Daunger looketh pale to beholde her Maiesty; & tyranny 

blusheth to heare of her mercy. Iupiter came into the house of Euph. ii. 

20 poore Baucis, & she vouchsafeth to visite the bare Farmes of heracap.811.9 ; 

subiects. We vpo our knees, wil entreat her to come into the valley, p.rol. 2; 

that'ur houses may be blessed with her presence, whose hartes are Elurth.p. 

filled with quietnes by her gouemement. To her wee wish as many 

yeares, as our fieldes haue eares of corne, both infinite: and to her 

35 enemies, as many troubles, as the Wood hath leaues, all intolerable. 

But whist, here shee is, run downe Pan the hill in all hast, and 

though thou breake thy necke to giue our mother warning, it is no 

matter. 

Pan. No, giue me leaue to die with wondring, & trippe you to 

30 your mother. Here I yeelde all the flockes of these fields to your 

highnes: greene be the grasse where you treade: calme the water 

where you rowe: sweete the aire, where you breathe : long the life 

that you Hue, happy the people that you loue: this is all I can wish. 

During your abode, no theft shalbe in the woods: in the fielde no 

35 noise, in the vallies no spies, my selfe will keepe all safe : that is all 

I can offer. And heare I breake my pipe, which Apollo could (Mid. iv. 

neuer make me doe; and follow that sounde which followes you. I,24-5) 

8 thon Q 17 hedlesse] heedless Br. 26 whist,] whilst N, Br. 

34 fields N. Br.


At the bottome of the hill, entring into the 

hous CERES with her Nymphes in an haruest 

Cart, meete her Maiesty, hauing a 

Crowne of wheat-ears with a Iewell, 

and after this song, vttered 5 

the speech following. 

Swel Ceres now, for other Gods are shrinking, 

Pomona pineth, 

Fruitksse her tree ; 

Faire Phoebus shineth 10 

Onely on mee, 

Conceite doth make me smile whilst I am thinking, 

How euery one doth read my story, 

How euery bough on Ceres lowreth, 

Cause heauens plenty on me powreth, 15 

And they in leaues doe onely glory, 

All other Gods of poiver bereuen, 

Ceres only Queene of heauen. 

With Robes and flowers let me be dressed, 

Cynthia that shineth, 20 

Is not so cleare, 

Cynthia declineth, 

When I appeere, 

Yet in this lie shee raignes as blessed, 

And euery one at her doth wonder, 25 

And in my eares still fonde Fame ivhispers, 

Cynthia shalbe Ceres Mistres, 

But first my Carre shall riue a sunder, 

{The cart parts in the middle.) 

Helpe Phcebus helpe ! my fall is suddaine; 3° 

Cynthia, Cynthia, must be soueraigne. 

GReater then Ceres, receiue Ceres Crowne, the ornament of my 

plenty, the honour of your peace, heere at your highnes feete, 

I lay downe my feined deity, which Poets haue honoured, truth 

contemned. To your Maiesty whome the heauens haue crowned 35 

12 while N. 15 heauen Eng Hel. 28 in sunder. Eng. Hel.

AT BISHAM 477 

with happines, the world with wonder, birth with dignitie, nature 

with perfection, we doe all Homage, accounting nothing ours but 

what comes fro you. And this muche dare we promise for the Lady 

of the farme, that your presence hath added many daies to her life, 

5 by the infinite ioies shee conceyues in her heart, who presents your 

highnesse with this toye and this short praier, poured from her hart, 

that your daies may increase in happines, your happines haue no 

end till there be no more daies. 

(AT SUDELEY.) 

IO At her Majesties entrance into the Castle, an olde 

Shepheard spake this saying: 

Vouchsafe to heare a simple shephard: shephards and simplicity 

cannot part. Your Highnes is come into Cotshold, an uneven 

country, but a people that carry their thoughtes, levell with their 

15 fortunes; lowe spirites, but true harts; using plaine dealinge, once 

counted a jewell, nowe beggery. These hills afoorde nothing but 

cottages, and nothing can we present to your Highnes but shephards. 

The country healthy and harmeles; a fresh aier, where there 

are noe dampes, and where a black sheepe is a perilous beast; no 

20 monsters; we carry our harts at our tongues ends, being as far from 

dissembling as our sheepe from fiercenesse; and if in any thing 

we shall chance to discover our lewdnes, it will be in over boldnesse, 

in gazinge at you, who fils our harts with joye, and our eies 

with wonder. As for the honoreble Lord and Lady of the Castle, 

2$ what happines they conceive, I would it were possible for themselves 

to expresse; then should your Majestie see, that al outwarde 

enterteinment were but a smoake rising from their inward affections, 

which as they cannot be seene, being in the hart, so can 

they not be smoothred, appearing in their countenance. This lock 

30 of wooll, Cotsholdes best fruite, and my poore gifte, I offer to your 

Highnes; in which nothing is to be esteemed, but the whitenes, 

virginities colour; nor to be expected but duetye, shephards 

religion. 

Sunday, APOLLO running after DAPHNE, a Shepheard 

35 following uttering this : 

10 At... Apollo, my distresse, and (p.. 478 I. 37) supplied from N., the leaf B 

being wanting in Q 25 thlmselves] them Br. 28-9 they cannot be Br.


Nescis temeraria ; ncscis 

Quern fugias; ideoque fugis. 

(Saph. ii. A short tale, but a sorrowfull; a just complaint, but remedelesse. 

4.40) I loved (for shephardes have their Saints), long I loved (for Beauty 

bindeth prentices), a Nymph most fairc, and as chast as faire, yet 5 

not more faire then I unhappy. Apollo, who calleth himselfe a 

God (a title among men, when they will commit injuries (to) 

tearme themselves Gods), pursued my Daphne with bootelesse love, 

and me with endlesse hate; her he woed, with faire wordes, the 

flatteries of men; with great gifts, the sorceries of Gods; with cruell 10 

threates, the terrefiing of weake damosels. Nee prcce nee pretio nec 

movet ilk minis. Me he terrified with a monstrous word, metamorphosing, 

saying that he would turne me into a woolfe, and of a 

shepheard make me a sheepe-biter; or into a cockatrice; and cause 

mine eies, which gazed on her, to blind hers, which made mine 15 

(Saph. ii. dazell; or to a molde, that I should heare his flattering speech, but 

(Throb. P. never behold her faire face : Tantœne animis ca'lestibus irœ ? Some- 

417) times would he allure her with sweete musicke, but harmony is harsh 

when it is lusts broaker; often with promise of immortality, but 

chastetye is of itselfe immortall; ever pursuing her with swiftnes, 20 

but Vertue tying wings to the thoughts of virgins, swiftnes becommeth 

surbated. Thus lived he twixt love and jelousy; I twixt love 

and danger; she twixt feare and vertue. At last and alas, this day, 

I feare of all my joyes the last, I cannot as a Poet (who describing 

the morning, and before he tell what it is make it night) stand on 25 

the time; Love coyneth no circumloquutions; but by the sunne, 

a Shepheardes diall, which goeth as true as our harts, it was four of 

the clocke, when she, flying from his treason, was turned into a tree; 

which made me stand as though I had bene turned into a stone, and 

Apollo so enchanted as wounded with her losse, or his owne 30 

crueltye: the fingers, which were wonte to play on the lute, found 

no other instrument then his owne face; the goulden haire, the pride 

of his heade, pulde off in lockes, and stampt at his feete; his sweete 

voice, turned to howling; and there sitteth he (long may he sorrowe) 

wondring and weeping, and kissing the lawrell, his late love, and 35 

mine ever. Pleaseth your Majestye to viewe the melancholy of 

Apollo, my distresse, and Daphnes mischance, it may be the sight 

of so rare perfectiO, will make him die for griefe, which I wish, or 

Daphne returoe to her olde shape, which must be your wounder; 

25 the careless grammar is in Q 39 wonder Br,

AT SUDELEY 479 

if neither, it shal content me that I haue reuealed my griefes, and 

that you may beholde his. 

This speech ended, her Maiesty sawe APOLLO 

with the tree, hauing on the one side 

5 one that sung, on the other one 

that plaide. 

S ing 

you, plaie you, but sing and play my truth, 

This tree my lute, these sighes my notes of ruth: 

The Lawrcll leafe for eucr shall bee greene, 

io And chastely shalbe Apolloes Queene, 

If gods maye dye, here shall my tombe be plaste, 

And this engrauen, 'Fonde Phoebus, Daphne chaste! 

After these verses, the song. 

M 

Y hart and tongue were tiv'umes, at once conceaued; 

The eldest was my hart, borne dumbe by destcnie, 

{Camp iv. 

2 poem^'' 

The last my tongue, of all sweete thoughts bereaued, passim) 

Yet strung and tunde, to play harts harmonic. 

Both knit in one, and yet asunder placed, 

What hart would speake, the tongue doeth still discouer ; 

20 What tongue doth speake, is of the hart embraced, 

And both are one to make a new found louer: 

New foundc, and onely founde in Gods and Kings, {Camp.W. 

Whose words are deedes, but deedes nor ivords regarded: 

Chaste thoughts doe mount, and she with siviftest wings1 

25 My louc with paine, my paine with losse rewarded: 

2.80,90- 

Engraue ipon this tree, Daphnes perfection, 

That neither men nor gods, can force affection. {End v. 3. 

232) 

The song ended, the tree riued, and DAPHNE issued 

out, APOLLO ranne after, with these words. 

N. 

30 TImpha mane, per me concordant carmina neruis. 

Faire Daphne staye, too chaste because too faire, 

Yet fairer in mine eies, because so chaste, 

And yet because so chaste, must I despaire ? 

And to despaire, Iyeelded haue at last 

12 Fonde .. . chaste] inv. com. suppl. N. 23 nor] not Eng. Hel. 1614 

24 she] flie Eng. Hel, 27 this line in inv. com. N. Br.


Shepheard possesse thy loue, for me too cruell, 

Possesse thy loue, thou knowest not how to measure, 

A dunghill cock doeth often find a Jewell, 

Enioying that, he knowes not to be treasure. 

When broomy bearde, to sweepe thy lips presume, 5 

When on thy necke, his rough hewen armes shall moue, 

And gloate on thee with eies that drizell reume, 

When that his toothlesse mouth shall call thce loue, 

Noght will I saie of him, but pittie thee, 

That beauty might, but would no wiser bee. 

DAPHNE running to her Maiestie 

vttred this. 

I 

stay, for whether should chastety fly for succour, but to the 

Queene of chastety. By thee was I enterred in a tree, that by 

crafte, way might be made to lust, by your highnes restored, that 15 

by vertue, there might be assurance in honor: these tables, to set 

downe your prayses, long since, Sibillas prophesies, I humbly pre 

sent to your Maiesty, not thinking, that your vertues can be 

(Coivdray, deciphered in so slight a volume, but noted; the whole world is 

p. 4 . 25; drawen in a small mappe, Homers Illiades in a nutshel, and the 20 

p. 64) riches of a Monarch, in a few cyphers; and so much ods, betwext 

explaining of your perfections, and the touching, as is betwixt 

painting and thinking, the one, running ouer a little table in a whole 

day, the other ouer the whole world in a minute. With this vouch 

safe a poore virgins wish, that often wish for good husbands, mine, 25 

only for the endlesse prosperity of my soueraigne. 

The verses, written in the tables which 

were giuen to her Maiesty, 

L 

L 

Et fame describe your rare perfection, 

Let nature paint your beauties glory, 30 

Let loue engraue your true affection, 

Let wonder write your vertues story, 

By them and Gods must you be blazed, 

Sufficeth men they stand amazed. 

4 to om. N (1788) 9 Nought N.Br. 13 whither Br. N (1823) 14 I 

was Br. 17 prayses long since Sibillas prophesies I Q: I follow N (1823): 

comma only at since and prophesies Br, 22 the bef. explaining Br. 

I0


The thirde day shoulde haue beene presented 

to her Maiestie, the high Constable of 

Cotsholde, but the weather so vnfit, that it 

was not. But this it should haue beene, 

5 one clothed all in sheepes-skins, face 

& all, spake this by his interpreter. 

MAy it please your highnes, this is the great Constable and 

commandadore of Cotsholde; he speaks no language, but 

the Rammish tongue; such sheepishe gouernours there are, that can 

10 say no more to a messenger then he, ({here the Constable utters} 

Bea !) this therfore, as signifying his duety to your Maiestye, and al 

our desires, I am commanded to be his interpreter. Our shepheards 

starre, pointing directly to Cotshold, and in Cotshold, to 

Sudley, made vs expect some wonder, and of the eldest, aske some 

15 counsel: it was resolued by the ancientst, that such a one should 

come, by whome all the shepheards should haue their flocks in 

safety, & their own liues, all the coutry quietnes, & the whole world 

astonishment : our Constable commaunds this day to be kept 

holliday, all our shepheards are assembled, and if shepheards pas- 

20 times may please, how ioyful would they be if it would please you 

to see them ; which if you vouchsafe not, as pastimes too meane for 

your Maiestie, they meane to call this day the shepheards blacke 

day; in all humilitie we entreat, that you would cast an eie to their 

rude deuices, and an eare to their harshe wordes, and if nothing 

25 happen to be pleasing, the amends is, nothing shalbe tedious. 

After this speech her Maiesty was to be 

brought amonge the shepheards amonge 

whome was a King and a Queene 

to be chosen and thus they 

30 beganne. 

MELIBÆEUS. NISA. CUTTER OF COOTSHOLDE. 

c 

Mel VT the Cake: who hath the beane, shalbe King; and 

where the peaze is, shee shalbe Queene. 

Nis. I haue the peaze, and must be Queene. 

8 commander Br. 10-1 he, (Bea), this Q: N. italicizes (Bea) : he (baa) (ital.). 

This Br. 12 interpreter, or QN.Br. 28 a 2 om. Br. 

BOND 1 I i

482 


Mel I the beane and King, I must comniaunde. 

Ms. Not so; the Queene shall and must commaunde, for I haue 

often heard of a King that coulde not commaunde his subiects, and 

of a Queene that hath commaunded Kings. 

Mel I yeeld, yet is it within compasse of my authoritie to aske 5 

questions and first I will beginne with you in loue, I meane Shepheardes 

loue, for I will not meddle with Gentlefolkes loue: which is 

most constant, the man or the woman ? 

Ms. It is no question, no more then if you should aske, whether 

on a steepe hill, a square stone, or a globe stoode most steddye. 10 

Mel Both louing, which is most louing ? 

Ms. The woman, if she haue her right; the man, if he be his 

owne Iudge. 

Mel Why doth the man euer woe the woman, the woman neuer 

the man? 15 

Ms. Because men are most amorous and least chaste; women 

carelesse of fonde affections, and, when they embrace them, fearfull. 

But vnlesse your questions were wiser, I commaunde you to silence. 

You sirra, that sit as though your wits were a woole-gathering, will 

you haue a question, or a commaundement ? 20 

Cut. No question of a Queene, for they are harde to be answered, 

but anie commaundement, for that must be obeyed. 

Ms. Then sing. And you sir, a question, or commaundment ? 

Do. A commaundment I; and glad that I am! 

Ms. Then play. 25 

Do. I haue plaide so long with my fingers, that I haue beaten out 

of play al my good fortunes. 

(Euph. \\. 

The Song. 

Earbes, wordes, and stones, all maladies haue cured, 

114 11.16-, Hearbes, wordes, and stones. I vsed when I loued. oo 

7 ; Ettdiin 

H 

v.'3. 28) ' Hearbes smels, words, winde, stones hardnes haue procured; 

By stones, nor wordes, nor hearbes her minde was moued. 

I askt the cause: this was a womans reason, 

Mongst hearbes are weedes, and thereby are refused; 

Deceite, as well as truth, speakes wordes in season, 35 

False stones by foiles haue many one abused. 

(LovesMet. I sight, and then shee saide my fancie smoaked; 

iv. 1.11-2) I gaz'd, shee saide my lookes were follies glauncing; 

1 cammaunde Q


I sounded deade, shee saide my loue was choaked ; 

I started vp, shee saide my thoughtes were dauncing. 

0, sacred loue I if thou haue any Godhead, 

Teach other rules to winne a maidenkeade. 

5 Mel. Well song, & wel plaide, seldome so well amonge shepheards: 

but call me the Cutter of Cotsholde, that lookes as though 

he onlie knew his leripoope; amorous he is, and wise, carying a 

sheepes eie in a calfs heade. 

Nis. Will you 3 questions, or 3 commaundments ? 

10 Cut. Halfe a dozen of eache, My wits worke like new beare, and 

they will breake my head, vnlesse it vent at the mouthe. 

Ms. Sing. 

Cut. I haue forsworne that since cuckow-time; for I heard one 

sing all the sommer, and in the winter was all balde. 

15 Mis. Play on the Lute. 

Cut. Taylers crafte: a knocke on the knuckles wil make one 

faste a fortnight; my belly and back shall not be retainers to my 

fingers. 

Mis. What question shall I aske ? 

20 Cut. Any, so it be of loue. 

Mis. Are youe amorous ? 

Cut. No, but fantasticall. 

Mis. But what is loue ? 

Cut. A single Accidens. (Ioy ) (Sorrow ) 

25 In loue there Hope [all toler-] Anger [all intolerare 

eight partes. 1 Truth [ able. ] Ielousie [ able. 

(Costacyj iDispairej 

These containe all, till you come to the rules; and then in loue, 

there are three concords. 

30 1. The first, betwixt a Bacheler, and a maide, 

2. The seconde, betwixt a man and his wife, 

3. The thirde, betwixt any he and she, that loueth stragling. 

Ms. The foole bleeds, it is time to stopp his vaine, for hauing wet 

his foote, he careth not how deepe he wades. Let vs atted that, 

35 which we most expect, the starr, that directs vs hither, who hath in 

Almanacke ? 

Cut. What meane you, a starmonger, the quipper of the firma- 

26 partes] parties N. 

almanac? Br.peril, rightly 

35 expect: The stair, .. hither: Who hath an 

11 2 

(Saph. i. 3. 

6; M.Bom. 

i. 3. 128 

(M. Bomb. 

11. 1.117- 

20) 

(M. Bomb. 

i. 1.24-6) 

(Euph. ii. 

6 1. II, 105 

I.12)

484 


ment, here is one. I euer carrie it, to knowe the hye waies to euerie 

good towne, the faires, and the faire weather. 

Mel Let me see it. The seuenth of September, happines was 

borne into the world; it may be the eleuenth is some woder. The 

rrioone at the ful, tis true, for Cynthia neuer shined so bright; the 5 

twelfth the weather inclined to moisture & shepheards deuises to 

dryenes; the thirteenth, sommer goeth from hence, the signe in 

virgo, viuat clarissima virgo. The diseases shalbe melancholies, 

some proceeding of necessitie, some of superfluity; many shalbe 

studying how to spend what they haue, more beating their braines to 10 

get what they want. Malice shalbe more infectious then the pestilence, 

and Drones more fauoured then Ants; as for Bees, they shal 

(Euph. i. haue but their laboure for their paines, and when their combes be 

l94 1• 17; ful, they shalbe stilde; the warre shal be, twixt hemlocke and honie. 

at Court; At foure of the clocke this day, shal appeare the worldes wonder 15 

Poem on that leades England into euery land, and brings all lands into 

iii. p. 495} England. 

Then espying her Maiesty, he & al the shepheards 

kneeling, concluded thus. 

This is the day, this the houre, this the starre: pardon dread 20 

Soueraigne, poore shepheards pastimes, and bolde shepheards presumptions. 

We call our selues Kings and Queenes to make mirth ; 

but when we see a King or Queene, we stand amazed. The sunne 

( Euph. ii. warmes the earth, yet looseth no brightnes; but sheweth more force, 

Harefield & Kings names that fell vpon shepheards, loose no dignity, but 25 

p. 4941.6) breede more feare. Their pictures are drawen in colours, and in 

brasse their portraytures engrauen. At chests, there are Kings, and 

Queenes, & they of wood. Shepheards are no more, nor no lesse, 

woodde. In Theaters, artificers haue plaide Emperours, yet the 

next day forgottg, neither their dueties nor occupations. For our 30 

boldenes in borrowing their names, and in not seeing your Maiesty 

for our blindnes, we offer these shepheards weedes, which, if your 

Maiestye vouchsafe at any time to weare, it shall bring to our hearts 

comfort, and happines to our labours. 

8 clarissima; Q 26 Their] The N. 27 chess Br. N(1823)

(AT RYCOTE) 

The 28. of September, her Maiesty went fro 

Oxforde to Ricort, where an olde gentleman, 

sometimes a souldier, deli- 

5 uered this speech. 

485 

VOVCHSAFE dread soueraigne, after so many smooth speeches of 

Muses, to heare a rough hewen tale of a souldier: wee vse 

not with wordes to amplifie our conceites, and to pleade faith by {Qtiarrenfigures, 

but by deedes to shew the loyalty of our harts, and to make don,P. 469 

10 it good with our liues. I meane not to recount any seruice, all 

proceeding of duety, but to tell your Maiesty, that I am past al 

seruice, saue only deuotion. My horse, mine armour, my shielde, 

my sworde, the riches of a young souldier, and an olde souldiers 

reliques, I should here offer to your highnesse; but my foure boies 

15 haue stollen them from me, vowing themselues to armes, and leauing 

mee to my prayers: fortune giueth successe, fidelitye courage, 

chance cannot blemish faith, nor trueth preuet destinye; whateuer 

happe, this is their resolution, and my desire, that their liues maye 

be imployed wholy in your seruice, and their deathes bee their 

20 vowes sacrifice. Their deathes, the rumour of which hath so often 

affrighted the Crowe my wife, that her hart hath bene as blacke as 

her feathers. I know not whether it be affection or fondnes; but 

the crowe thinketh her owne birds the fairest, because to her they 

are dearest. What ioies we both conceiue, neither ca expresse; 

25 sufficeth they be, as your vertues, infinite. And although nothing 

be more vnfit to lodge your Maiestye, then a crowes neste, yet shall 

it be most happy to vs, that it is by your highnesse made a Phoenix 

neste. Qui color ater erat, nunc est conirarius afro. Vouchsafe this A fain 

trifle, and with this my heart, the greatest gift I can offer, and the gowne. 

30 chiefest, that I ought. 

On Sunday, her Maiesty going to the garde, 

receiued with sweete Musicke of sundry 

sorts, the olde Gentleman meeting 

her, saide thus. 

1 Ricot Br.: Rycot N(1823) 9 deedes, Q 18 happen. This N. Br. 

34 thus] this N. Br,


PArdon, dread Soueraigne, the greatnes of my presumption, who 

P hauing nothing to say, must follow stil to wonder, but saft, 

some newes out of Irelande. 

A letter deliuered by an Irish lacq3, in which 

was inclosed, a Darte of gold, set with Dia- 5 

monds, & after the letter read, deliuered 

to her Maiestye, with this motto in Irish, 

Ifiye oneiy for my soueraigne. 

MY deuty humbly remembred. It is saide, the winde is 

vnconstant: I am gladde it is, otherwise had not I heard I0 

that, which I most wished, and least looked for. The winde blowing 

stifly in the weste, on the suddaine turned easterly, by which meanes 

I receiued letters, that her Maiestie woulde bee at Rycort; nothing 

could happen to mee more happy, vnlesse it were my selfe to be 

there to doe my duety. But I am a stranger in mine owne countrye, 15 

and almost vnknowen to my best frends, onely remembred by her 

Maiestie, whose late fauours haue made me more than fortunate. 

I should accout my ten years absence a flatt banishment, were 

I not honoured in her Maiesties seruice, which hath bound all my 

affections, prentises to patience. In all humility, I desire this Dart 20 

to be deliuered, an Irish weapon, and this wish of an English hearte, 

that in whose hart faith is not fastened, a Darte may. I can scarce 

write for ioy; and it is likely, this lacque cannot speak for wondring. 

If he doe not, this is all that I should say, that my life is my 

dueties bondman, dutie my faiths soueraigne. 25 

M 

The Dart deliuered, a skipper comming fro 

Flaunders, deliuered another letter, with a 

key of golde, set with Diamonds, with this 

motto in dutch, I onelie open to you. 

MY duety remebred, The enemy of late hath made many brauea- 30 

does, euen to the gates of Ostend, but the successe was 

onely a florish. My selfe walking on the Raparts, to ouer see the 

Sentenels, descryed a pink, of whome I enquired, where the Court 

was: hee saide hee knew not, but that the 28. of Septeber, her 

13 Ricott Br. 15 there to] thereto Q 18 accfiot Q 34 28th. N.; twentyeigth 

Br.

AT RYCOTE 487 

Maiesty would be at Rycort. I was ouer-ioyed, & in making haste 

to remeber my duety, I had almost forgot it, for I was shipping my 

selfe for England, with this Skipper; but to come without leaue, 

might be to returne without welcoe. To signifie that my hart is 

5 there, I most humbly entreat, that this Key may be pressed, the 

Key of Ostende, & Ostend the Key of Flaunders. The wards are 

made of true harts; trechery canot counterfeit the Key, nor treason 

her selfe picke the locke. None shal turne it: but who her Maiesty 

cdmands, none can. For my selfe, I can but wish, all happines to 

10 her highnes, & any occasio, that what my toung deliuers, my bloud 

may seale, the end of my seruice, that in her seruice my life 

may end. 

The Key deliuered, a french page came with 

three other letters, the one writen to the la- 

15 dy Squemish, which beeing mistaken by 

a wrong superscription, was read before 

her Maiestie. In the second was inclosed a 

sword of golde, set with Diamonds and Rubyes, 

with this motto in french, Drawen onelie 

20 in your defence. In the thirde was inclosed a 

trunchio set with Diamods, with this motto 

in Spanish, / doe not commaunde but vnder you. 

F 

A letter, written by a Souldier to his Mistris 

the Lady Squemish. 

25 Aire Lady and sweete Mistris, I seldome write, because I write 

not well; if I speake, you say I chatter, because I speake so (E 

fast; & when I am silent, yor thinke me carelesse. You say loue P. 

cannot be in soldiers: I sweare it is; only this the differece, that 

we proue it by the sword, others, by their Sonets; theirs inke, 

30 blacke for colde, ours bloud, redde for heate. Ofte" haue you tolde 

me, that I know not what loue is, & ofte" haue I tolde you, that this it 

is, that which makes the head ake, and the hart to; the eies ielous, 

and the eares to; the liuer blacke, & the Splen to; the vaines 

shrinke, & the purse to. Wit is but loues wierdrawer, making of a 

35 short passion an endlesse perswasion, yet no more mettall. .You 

1 Ricott Br. 21 this] his Q


obiect, that I haue many Mistrisses: I answere, you haue ten times 

as many seruants, and if you should picke a quarrel, why should not 

I bring my Mistresses into the field against your seruants? But 

inconstancy is a souidiers scarre, it is true; but the wound came by 

constancie. What a patient vertue is staidnes! like a nail in a dore, 5 

rusty, because neuer remoued. I cannot be so superstitious as these 

nice louers, who make the pax of their mistris hads : tis flat popery. 

I would not purchase loue in fee simple, a lease of two years to me 

were tedious; I meane not to haue my tongue ringed at my Mistris 

eare like a Iewel, alwaies whispering of loue; I am no earewigg: 10 

nor can I endure still to gaze on her face, as though my eies were 

bodkins to sticke in her haire. Let me haue my loue answered, and 

you shall finde me faithfull; in which if you make delaies, I cannot 

be patient: the winde calls me away, and with the winde, awaie 

shall my affections. 15 

The second Letter. 

MY duetie to your L. remembred &c. Being readie to take 

M 

shipping, I heard that her Maiesty would honor Ricort with 

her presence, which wrought no smal cotent; but to haue made it 

ful, I wished I might haue seene it. In this place is no choise of 20 

anie thing, whereby I might signifie my dutifull affection, but that 

which a Souldier maketh his chiefest choise, a sword, which most 

humblie I desire to haue presented to her highnes. With this protestation 

pourde from my hart, that in her seruice I will spende the 

bloud of my hart. Eloquence & I, am vowde enemies; loialty & 25 

I, sworne brothers : what my words cannot effect, my sworde shall. 

The thirde Letter from the Sea coast. 

MY duetie humbly remembred : the same time that I receiued 

letters that her Maiesty would be at Ricort, the winde 

serued for Britaigne: I was ouer ioied with both, yet stoode in a 30 

mamering whether I should take the opportunity of the winde, 

which I long expected, or ride poste to do my duetie, which I most 

desired: necessitye cotroled affection, that bid me vnlesse I could 

keepe the winde in a bagge, to vse the windes whe they blew. 

I obaide, yet wishing that they would turne for a while, to serue my 35 

17 Ladyship N. Br. 18 Ricott Br.. 25 avowed Br. 29 Ricott Br. 

30 Britain Br. : Bretaigne N(1823) 34 whe] where N.

AT RYCOTE 489 

turne, being vnfurnished of al fit presents. I would haue this my 

excuse that cheapside is not in my Shippe, & therefore haue nothing 

to offer but my Trunchio the honour which I receiued of her 

Maiestie, by whom I am only to be commaunded and euer, else let 

5 me be only miserable and euer. 

These Letters read, and the presents deliuered, 

the olde man kneeling 

downe ended thus. 

THat my sonnes haue remembred their dueties, it is my harts 

comfort; that your Maiestie accepteth the, their harts heauen. 

If fortune, & fidelitie had bin twinnes, they might haue beene as 

rich, as faithfull; but this is the Iubyle of my life, that their faithes 

are without spot, and your Maiesty I hope, confident, without suspition. 

Among my ioies, there is one griefe, that my daughter, the 

15 Mistris of a Moole hil, hath so much forgottg, that most she should 

remember, duetie. I doubt not her excuse, because shee is a 

woman; but feare the truth of it, because it must be to her 

soueraigne. For my selfe, my crowe, and all our birds, this I 

promise, that they are all as faithfull in their feathers, as they were 

20 in their shels. 

This being done, there was sweete musicke, and two sonnets ; which 

ended, her Maiesty went in. 

On muday morning, as her Maiesty was to 

take horse, a messenger, comming out of 

25 Iersey, and bringing a Daysie of golde, set 

with Rubies, deliuered it to her Maiesty 

with this speech. 

AT length, though verie late, I am come, from the Ladie of the 

Moold hill, sent long since, but the passage troublesome; at 

30 euerie miles end, a louer, at euery sentence end a lie. I staide to (Gall. i. 4. 

heare the conclusions, and found nutbrowne gyrles to be cheapned; 4) 

but none to be bought but the amyable. Thus much for my 

excuse: now for my Mistris, who hearing that your Maiesty would 

enter this cabbine, was astonished with ioie, and doubt, ioie, for so 

1 turne. Being ... presents, N. Br. 4 euer,] the comma at commaunded Q 

12 faithes] fathers N.: father's Br.


great honour done to her father, doubt, by what meanes shee might 

shew her duety to your Maiesty. At the last, sitting vpon the top of 

a moole hill, she espied a red Daysie, the fairest flower that barren 

place doth yeeld, which, with all humilitie, she presents to your 

Maiestie ; it hath no sweetenes, yet manie vertues; her hart no 5 

tongue, but infinite affections. In you, she saith, are all vertues, and 

towardes you all her affections. 

FINIS.

ENTERTAINMENT AT HAREFIELD. 

July-August, 1602. 

Copy of some Papers belonging to the late Sir Roger Newdigate, 

Baronet (7 pages folio), lettered on the back, by a later hand, 

5 'Entertainment of Q. Eliz. at Harefield, by the Countesse of 

Derby.' 

(I) 

After the Queene entered (out of the highway) into the Deamesne 

grounde of Harefielde, near the Dayrie howse, she was mett with 

2 persons, the one representing a BAYLIFE, the other a DAYRIE- 

10 MAIDE, with the Speech. Her Majesty being on horsebacke, stayed 

under a tree (because it rayned) to heare it. 

B. Why, how now, Joane! are you heere ? Gods my life, what 

make you heere, gaddinge and gazinge after this manner? You 

come to buy gape-seede, doe you ? Wherefore come you abroade 

15 now I faith can you tell ? 

Joa. I come abroade to welcome these Strangers. 

B. Strangers ? how knew you there would come Strangers ? 

Jo, All this night I could not sleepe, dreaming of greene rushes; (Euph. ii. 

l6l l.16; 

and yesternight the chatting of the pyes, and the chirkinge of the 

20 frisketts, did foretell as much; and, besides that, all this day my 4.98) ' 

lefte eare glowed, and that is to me (let them say what they wil) ( CamP. 

allwaies a signe of Strangers, if it be in Summer; marye, if it be in 

the Winter, 'tis a signe of anger. But what makes you in this company, 

I pray you ? 

25 B. I make the way for these Strangers, which the Way-maker 

himself could not doe; for it is a way was never passed before. 

Besides, the Mrs. of this faire company, though she know the way to 

all men's harts, yet she knowes the way but to few men's howses, 

except she love them very well, I can tell you; and therefore I 

30 myselfe, without any comission, have taken upon me to conduct 

them to the house. 

3—P. 498 (FINIS.) reprinted from JNichols' Progresses (1823), iii. 586-95. See 

Notes, pp. 533-4 4 ' The Speeches, &c., are in a hand a little later than the 

time of Queen Elizabeth' {Churton)


Jo. The house? which house? do you remember yourselfe? 

which way goe you ? 

B. I goe this way, on the right hand. Which way should I goe ? 

Jo. You say true, and you're a trim man; but I faith I'll talke noe 

more to you, except you ware wyser. I pray you hartely, 'forsooth, 5 

come neare the house, and take a simple lodginge with vs to-night; 

for I can assuere you that yonder house that he talks of is but 

a Pigeon-house, which is very little if it were finisht, and yet very 

little of it is finisht. And you will belieue me, vpon my life, Lady, 

I saw Carpenters and Bricklayers and other Workmen about it 10 

within less then these two howers. Besides, I doubt my Mr. and 

Mrs. are not at home; or, if they be, you must make your owne 

provision, for they have noe provision for such Strangers. You 

should seeme to be Ladies; and we in the country have an old 

saying, that ' halfe a pease a day will serve a Lady.' I know not 15 

what you are, neither am I acquainted with your dyet; but, if you 

will goe with me, you shall haue cheare for a Lady: for first you 

shall haue a dayntie sillibub; next a messe of clowted creame; 

stroakings, in good faith, redd cowes milk, and they say in London 

that's restorative : you shall have greene cheeses and creame. (I'll 20 

speake a bould word) if the Queene herself (God save her Grace) 

(were here), she might be seen to eat of it. Wee will not greatly 

bragge of our possets, but we would be loath to learne to praise: 

and if you loue frute, forsooth, wee haue jenitings, paremayns, russet 

coates, pippines, able-johns, and perhaps a pareplum, a damsone, 25 

I or an apricocke too, but that they are noe dainties this yeare; and 

therefore, I pray, come neare the house, and wellcome heartily 

doe soe. 

B. Goe to, gossip; your tongue must be running. If my Mrs. 

should heare of this, I faith shee would give you little thankes I can 30 

tell you, for offeringe to draw so faire a flight from her Pigeon-house 

(as you call it) to your Dayrie-house. 

Jo. Wisely, wisely, brother Richard; I faith as I would vse the 

matter, I dare say shee would giue me great thankes: for you know 

my Mrs. charged me earnestly to retaine all idele hearvest-folkes that 35 

past this way; and my meaning was, that, if I could hold them all 

this night and to-morrow, on Monday morning to carry them into 

the fields; and to make them earne their entertaynment well and 

22 [were here] suppl. Churton

AT HAREFIELD 493 

thriftily; and to that end I have heere a Rake and Forke, to deliver 

to the best Huswife in all this company. 

B. Doe soe then: deliver them to the best Huswife in all this 

company; for wee shall haue as much vse of her paines and patience 

5 there as here. As for the dainties that you talke of, if you have 

any such, you shall do well to send them; and as for these 

Strangers, sett thy hart at rest, Joane; they will not rest with (thee) 

this night, but will passe on to my Mr. house. 

Joa. Then, I pray take this Rah and Forke with you; but I am 

10 ashamed, and woe at my hart, you should goe away so late. And 

I pray God you repent you' not, and wish yourselves here againe, 

when you flnde you haue gone further and fared worsse. 

When her Maiestie was alighted from her horse, and ascended 

3 steps neare to the entering into the house, a carpet and chaire 

15 there sett for her; PLACE and TIME present themselves, and vsed 

this Dialogue. 

PLACE in a partie-colored roobe, like the brick house. 

TIME withyeollow haire, and in a green roabe, with a hower glasse, (Tilt-yard, 

stopped, not runninge. P. 414 

2o P. Wellcome, good Time. 

T. Godden, my little pretie priuat Place. 

P. Farewell, godbwy Time) are you not gone? doe you stay 

heere? I wonder that Time should stay any where; what's the 

cause ? 

2 5 T. If thou knewest the cause, thou wouldst not wonder; for 

I stay to entertaine the Wonder of this time; wherein I would pray 

thee to ioyne mee, if thou wert not too little for her greatnes; for it 

weare as great a miracle for thee to receive her, as to see the Ocean 

shut up in a little creeke, or the circumference shrinke vnto the 

30 pointe of the center. 

P. Too little! by that reason she should rest in we place, for noe 

place is great ynough to receive her. Too little! I haue all this 

day entertayned the Sunn, which, you knowe, is a great and glorious 

Guest: hee's but euen now gone downe yonder hill; and now he is 

35 gone, methinks, if Cinthia her selfe would come in his place, the 

place that contaynde him should not be too little to receave her. 

T. You say true, and I like your comparison; for the Guest that 

wee are to entertaine doth fill all places with her divine vertues, as 

1 ' 2 Juells' note in original MS, (Churton) 7 [thee] sufph Churton


the Sunn fills the World with the light of his beames. But say, 

poore Place, in what manner didst thou entertaine the Sunn ? 

P. I received his glory, and was filled with it: but, I must 

confesse, not according to the proportion of his greatnes, but 

according to the measure of my capacitie; his bright face (me- 5 

{Eupk. ii. thought) was all day turnd vpon mee; nevertheless his beames in 

sud.p 484) infinite abundance weere disperst and spread vpon other places. 

T. Well, well; this is noe time for vs to entertaine one another, 

when wee should ioine to entertaine her. Our entertaynment of 

this Goddesse will be much alike; for though her selfe shall eclipse 10 

her soe much, as to suffer her brighthes to bee shadowed in this 

obscuere and narrow Place, yet the sunne beames that follow her, 

the traine I meane that attends vpon her, must, by the necessitie of 

this Place, be deuided from her. Are you ready, Place ? Time is 

ready. 15 

P. Soe it should seeme indeed, you are so gaye, fresh, and cheerfull. 

You are the present Time, are you not ? then what neede you 

make such haste ? Let me see, your wings are clipt, and, for ought 

I see, your hower-glasse runnes not. 

T My wings are dipt indeed, and it is her hands hath dipt 20 

them: and, tis true, my glasse runnes not: indeed it hath bine stopt 

a longe time, it can never rune as long as I waite upon this M ris. 

I (am) her Time; and Time weare very vngratefull, if it should 

not euer stand still, to serue and preserue, cherish and delight her, 

that is the glory of her time, and makes the Time happy wherein she 25 

liueth. 

P. And doth not she make Place happy as well as Time ? What 

if she make thee a contynewall holy-day, she makes me a perpetuall 

sanctuary. Doth not the presence of a Prince make a Cottage a 

(Eupk. ii. Court, and the presence of the Gods make euery place Heauen ? 30 

and the But, alas, my littlenes is capable of that happines that her great 

repeated grace would impart vnto me: but, weare I as large as there harts 

Baucisand that are mine owners, I should be the fairest Pallace in the world; 

Jupiter) and weere I agreeable to the wishes of there hartes, I should in 

some measure resemble her sacred selfe, and be in the outward 35 

frount exceeding faire, and in the inward furniture exceeding rich. 

T. In good time do you remember the hearts of your Owners; 

for, as I was passing to this place, I found this Hart, which, as my 

23 [am] suppl. Churton 38 ' A Diamond' orig, MS. (Churton)


daughter Truth tould mee, was stolne by owne of the Nymphes 

from one of the seruants of this Goddesse; but her guiltie conscience 

enforming her that it did belong only of right vnto her that 

is Mrs. of all harts in the world, she cast (it) from her for this 

5 time: and Oportunity, finding it, deliuered it vnto me. Heere, 

Place, take it thou, and present it vnto her as a pledge and mirror of 

their harts that owe thee. 

P. It is a mirror indeed, for so it is transparent. It is a cleare 

hart, you may see through it. It hath noe close corners, noe 

10 darkenes, noe unbutifull spott in it. I will therefore presume the 

more boldly to deliver it; with this assurance, that Time, Place, 

Persons, and all other circumstances, doe concurre altogether in biddinge 

her wellcome. 

(II) 

The humble Petition of a guiltlesse Lady, delivered in writing vpon 

15 Munday Mominge, when the (robe) of rainbowes was presented 

to the Q. by the La. WALSINGHAM. 

Beauties rose, and Vertues booke, 

Angells minde, and Angells looke, 

To all Saints and Angells deare, 

20 Clearest Maiestie on earth, 

Heauen did smile at your faire birth, 

And since your daies have been most cleare. 

Only poore St. Stvythen now 

Doth heare you blame his cloudy brow: 

25 But that poore St. deuoutly sweares, 

It is but a tradition vaine 

That his much weeping causeth raine 

For S ts in heauen shedd no teares: 

But this he saith, that to his feast 

3° Commeth Iris, an unbidden guest, 

In her moist roabe of collers gay; 

4 [it] suppl. Churton 15 [robe] suppion Churton's s suggestion: see next note 

16 In the MS., reprinted from the Conway Papers by P. Cunningham (Shak. Soe. 

Papers, 1845, vol. ii. art. ix) these verses are thus described in the margin: The 

humble peticon of a giltless sainte wherew th y e gowne of rainebowes was p r sented 

to hir Ma ty in hir progresse. 1602. 21 Heavens Conway. MS. 25 that] 

he Conway MS. 30 comes Conway MS.


And she cometh, she ever staies, 

For the space of fortie daies, 

And more or lesse raines euery day. 

But the good S t , when once he knew, 

This raine was like to fall on you, 5 

If S ts could weepe, he had wept as much 

As when he did the Lady leade 

That did on burning iron tread, 

To Ladies his respect is such. 

He gently first bids Iris goe 

Unto the Antipodes below, 

But shee for that more sullen grew. 

When he saw that, with angry looke, 

From her her rayneie roabes he tooke, 

Which heere he doth present to you. 15 

It is fitt it should with you remaine, 

For you know better how to raine. 

Yet if it raine still as before, 

St Swythen praies that you would guesse, 

That Iris doth more roabes possesse, 20 

And that you should blame him no more. 

(III) 

At her Maiesties departure from Harefield, PLACE, attyred in 

black mourninge aparell, used this farewell followinge: 

P. Sweet Maiestie, be pleased to looke vpon a poor Wydow, 

mourning before your Grace. I am this Place, which at your com- 25 

ming was full of ioy: but now at your departure am as full of sorrow. 

I was then, for my comfort, accompanied with the present cheerful 

Time; but now he is to depart with you; and, blessed as he is, 

must euer fly before you: But, alas! I haue noe wings, as Time 

1 And when she comes Conway MS., a reading which Cunningham 'infinitely 

referred' 2 full bef space Conway MS. 6 s ,nt { 

he om. Conway MS. 12 that] this Conway MS. 

Conway MS. 

14 roabe Conway 

MS. 16 It is] Tis Conway MS. 17 raine] raigne Conway MS. 

21 would Conway MS. 24 Lodge printed this single speech as No. ccciii of 

his ' Illustrations' from the Talbot Papers,vol. K.fol. 43. /t was there endorsed 

The Copy of a speech delivered to her Majesty, at her departure from Harvile, the 

Lord Keeper's' house, Aug. 1602: and headed Place, attired in black, gives the 

Queen this at farewell. 27 as bef I Lodge 28 is to] must Lodge 

IO


hath. My heauines is such, that I must stand still, amazed to see 

so greate happines so sone bereft mee. Oh, that I could remoue 

with you, as other circumstances can ! Time can goe with you, 

Persons can goe with you; they can moue like Heaven; but I, 

5 like dull Earth (as I am indeed), must stand vnmovable. I could 

wish myselfe like the inchaunted Castle of Loue, to hould you heere 

for euer, but that your vertues would dissolve all my inchauntment. 

Then what remedy ? As it is against the nature of an Angell to be 

circumscribed in Place, so it is against the nature of Place to haue 

10 the motion of an Angell. I must stay forsaken and desolate. You 

may goe with maiestie, joy, and glory. My only suyte, before you 

goe, is that you will pardon the close imprisonment which you have 

suffred euer since your comminge, imputinge it not to mee, but 

St. Swythen, who of late hath raysed soe many stormes, as I was 

15 faine prouide this Anchor,for you, when I did vnderstand you 

would put into this creeke. But now, since I perceaue this harbour 

is too little for you, and you will hoyste sayle and be gone, I 

beseech you take this Anchor with you. And I pray to Him that 

made both Time and Place, that, in all places where euer you shall 

20 arriue, you may anchor as safly, as you doe and euer shall doe in the 

harts of my Owners. 

 

THE COMPLAINT OF THE SATYRES AGAINST THE 

NYMPHES. 

Tell me, O Nymphes, why do you 

2 5 Shune vs that your loues pursue? 

What doe the Satyres notes retaine 

That should merite your disdaine? 

On our browes if homes doe growe, 

Was not Bacchus armed soe? 

1 stand still,] stay, still Lodge 5 stand] stay Lodge 7 enchantments 

Lodge 13 to aft. but Lodge 15 to bef. provide Lodge 

' A Jewell.' orig. MS. (jChurt on): Lodge has (presenting the queen with an 

anchor jewel) aft. for you understood Lodge 16 this 2 ] the Lodge 18 

now aft. you Lodge 22 ' This " Complaint" is on a separate leaf and seems 

to be in a different hand, though little; if at all, more recent than the other. It 

does not appear when or hotv the " Complaint" was introduced; and it may possibly 

be doubted whether it formed a part of the Entertainment, though it probably 

did. The title, "Entertainment of Q. Eliz.," &c, is written on the back of this 

paper, but in a later hand: (Churton) Before SATYRES Chw ton reports 

a V erased in MS., which he thinks might be for ' Five': more probably it was the 

first letter of ' Virgins,' and rightly erased 

BOND 1 K k

498 


Yet of him the Candean maid 

Held no scorne, nor was affraid. 

Say our colours tawny bee, 

Phoebus was not faire to see: 

Yet faire Clymen did not shunn 5 

To bee Mother of his Sonne. 

If our beards be rough and long, 

Soe had Hercules the strong: 

Yet Deianier, with many a kisse, 

Joyn'd her tender lipps to his. 10 

If our bodies hayry bee, 

Mars as rugged was as wee : 

Yet did Ilia think her grac'd, 

For to be by Mars imbrac'd. 

Say our feet ill-fauored are, 15 

Cripples leggs are worse by farre: 

Yet faire Venus, during life, 

Was the lymping Vulcan's wife. 

Breefly, if by nature we 

But imperfect creatures be; 20 

Thinke not our defects so much, 

Since Celestial Powers be such. 

But you Nymphes, whose venal loue 

Loue of gold alone doth moue, 

Though you scorne vs, yet for gold 

Your base loue is bought and sold. 

FINIS. 

23 venal on Churtons suggestion : veniall MS., which he thinks may have been 

written for venal 27 Here ends the Newdigate MS. 

2 5


 

A LOTTERY PRESENTED BEFORE THE LATE QUEENES MAIESTIE 

AT THE LORD CHANCELLORS HOUSE. 1602. 

A Marrincr with a box vnder his arme, containing all the seuerall 

5 things following, supposed to come from the Carricke, came into the 

Presence singing this Song. 

CYNTHIA Queene of Seas and lands, 

C 

{Tilt-yard, 

That fortune euery where commands, P. 414) 

Sent forth Fortune to the Sea, 

10 To try her fortune euery way. 

There did I fortune meet, which makes me now to sing, 

There is no fishing to the Sea, nor seruice to the King. (Cowdray, 

All the Nymphes of Thetis traine, P- 4 28 ) 

Did Cynthiaes fortune entertaine: 

15 Many a iewell, many a iem, 

Was to her fortune brought by them. 

Her fortune sped so well, as makes me now to sing, 

There is no fishing to the Sea, nor seruice to the King. 

Fortune, that it might be seene 

20 That she did seme a royall Queene, 

A franke and royall hand did beare. 

And cast her fauors euery where. 

Some toies fel to my share, which makes me now to sing, 

There is no fishing to the Sea, nor seruice to the King. 

25 And the Song ended, he vtlered this short speech. 

GOd saue you faire Ladies all: and for my part, if euer I be 

G 

brought to answere my sinnes, God forgiue me my sharking, 

and lay vsurie to my charge. T am a Marriner, and am now come 

2 From Davison's Poetical Rapsodie, ed. 1611, pp. 1-7. He gives the date 

wrongly as 1601 6 In a MS. printed by P. Cunningham (Shak. Soc. Papers, 

1845, vol. ii. art. \x)from the Conway Papers, entitled' The Devise to entertayne 

hir Matv at Harfielde, the house of S r Thomas Egerton Lo. Keeper and his Wife 

the Countess of Darbye. In hir Ma8 progresse. 1602.', and containing only the 

versa on SK Swithin, the Mariner's Song, and' The Sever all Lottes' {without 

signature), this heading is replaced in the margin by 'Sung by 2 mariners 

p r sently before the Lottaryes.' 12 ' From a passage in the Queen's Entertainment 

at Cowdray in 1591 [above, p. 428] it will be seen that the burden of this song 

is cited as " an Olde Saying " by a Fisherman' (Nichols, iii. 571) nor] noe 

Conway MS. {and twice below, II. 18, 24) 16 her orn. Conway MS. 22 fauors] 

fortunes Conway MS. .25 And... greater matters (p. 500 /. 11) not found in 

Conway MS. 28 Qv. ? not bef vsune 

Kk 2

Hir Ma 1ye . 

The 

Countess 

of Derbye 

Dowager 

Lo. Derbyes 

Wife. 

La. 

Worcester. 

La. Warwicke. 


from the sea, where I had the fortune to light vpon these few trifles. 

I must confesse I came but lightly by them, but I no sooner had 

them, but I made a vow that as they came to my hands by fortune, 

so I would not part with them but by fortune. To that end I haue 

euer since carried these Lots about me, that if I met with fit com- 5 

pany I might deuide my booty among them. And now (I thanke 

my good fortune) I am lighted into the best company of the world, 

a company of the fairest Ladies that euer I saw. Come Ladies trie 

your fortunes, and if any light vpon an vnfortunate blanke, let her 

thinke that fortune doth but mocke her in these trifles, and meanes 10 

to pleasure her in greater matters. 

THE SEVERALL LOTTES. 

( I ) Fortunes wheeles. 

Fortune must now noe more in tryumphe ride 

The wheeles ar yours thatt did hir chariott guide. 15 

(2) A purse. 

You thrive or woulde, or maye, your lott's a purse 

Fill it w th golde and you ar n'er the worse. 

(3) A ring wi th this poesye, as faithful! as I finde. 

Your hande by fortune on this ringe doth lighte 20 

And yett the wordes do fitt your humor righte. 

(4) A nuttmegg w th a blanke in itt. 

This nuttmegg hath a blanke butt chance doth hide itt 

Write you your wishe and fortune will provide itt. 

(5) A Snuffkin. 25 

Tis sommer, yet a snuffkin to your lott, 

But t'will be winter one day, doubte you nott. 

12 I follow the Conway MS., which agrees with Manningham's ( Diary' in the 

assignment of the 16 lots there given (viz. Nos. 1, 6, 11, 12, 3,16, 2, 19, 20, 27, 34, 

5, 31, 14, 22, 32 of this ed., in this order), and also places the hostess second and 

mixes the blanks with the other lots, instead of relegating them all to the end as 

Davison, who assigns none of the lots 14 in] on P. R. 15 Yours are 

the wheeles Percy transcript Chariots P.P. 21 word doth Mann. Pen. 

trs. fitt] hit P. R. 25, 26 Mufkin and muff kin Mann.: Snuftkin and 

snuftkin P.P. 26 sumer yet, Mann. P. R.


(6) A Maske. 

Wante you a maske; heere fortune gives you one 

Yett nature gives the Rose and Lillye none. 

(7) A Necklace. 

Fortune gives your faire necke this lace to weare, 

God graunte a heavier yoake itt never beare. 

(8) A Fame. 

You love to see and yett to bee unseene 

Take you a fanne to be your beautyes screene. 

(9) A Blanke. 

Wott you why fortune gives to you noe prize 

Good fayth she sawe you nott she wantes hir eyes. 

(10) Poyntes. 

You ar in every poynte a lover true 

And therfore fortune gives the poyntes to you. 

(11) Dyall 

The dyalPs yours: watch tyme leste it be loste 

And yett they spende it worste thatt watche itt most. 

(12) A playne ringe. 

Fortune hath sent you happe itt well or ill 

A playne golde ringe to wedd you to your will. 

(13) A looking glasse. 

Blide fortune doth nott see how faire you bee, 

Yet gives a glasse that you your selfe may see. 

(14) A Blanke, 

Nothinge's your lotte, thatt's more than can be tolde, 

For nothing is more p'tious then golde. 

2 giue Mann. 3 or Mann. 6 yoake] burden Pen. trs. 

i 1 Wot you not why fortune giues you no prize P. R. M rs . Hastinges] 

La. Susan Vere Pen, trs. 13 A dozen of Points P. R. 15 theis Pen. trs. 

17 The] This Pen. trs. 18 Yet they moste lose their time that Pen. trs.: 

Yet they most lose it that do P. R, La. Scudamour] no name Pen. trs. 

20 to bef. you Mann.: doth send you P. R. La. Francis] Mres Southwell 

Pen. trs. 21 your] you Mann. 24 Yet] It Pen. trs.: But P. R. 

26 La. Susan Vere.] no name Pen. trs. 27 p'tious &c] worth then pretious 

gold Pen. trs. 

La. 

Scroope. 

Mrs.Neuill. 

Thynne. 

M rs . 

Hastinges. 

M rs . 

Bridges. 

La. Scudamour. 

La.Francis. 

La. 

Kneuette. 

La. Susan 

Vere.

M rs . Vauissour. 

La. Sowthwell. 

L. Anne 

Clifford. 

Mrs Hyde. 

La. 

Kildare. 

La. Effingham. 

I.a. 

Pagette. 

Mrs. Kiddermister. 

Mrs. 

Strangwidge. 

502 


(15) A Handkerchefe. 

Whether you seeme to weepe, or weepe indeede 

This handkercheff, will stande you well in steede. 

(16) Gloves. 

Fortue these gloves in double challeng sendes 

For you hate fooles and flatterers her best frendes. 

(17) Lace. 

Give hir the lace thatt loves to be straite laced 

Soe fortunes little gifte is fittlye placed 

(i8) Knifes. 

Fortune doth give these paire of knifes to you 

To cutt the thredd of love if 't be nott true 

(19) Girdle. 

With fortunes girdle happie may you bee 

Yett they thatt ar lesse happie ar more ffree 

(20) Writing tables. 

These tables may contayne your thoughtes in parte 

Butt write not all thatt's written in your harte 

(21) Garters. 

Thoughe you have fortunes garters you wil be 

More staide and constant in your steppes then she 

(22) A blanke. 

Tis pittye suche a hande should drawe in vayne 

Thoughe itt gaine nothing itt shall pittye gaine 

(23) Coyfe and crosscloth 

Frowne you in earnest or be sicke in jeste 

This coife and crossecloth will become you beste 

5 in double] to you in P. P.: to you in double Pern. trs. 9 Soe... 

little] Litle-go fortunes laced Perc. trs. aptly P. R. Pen. trs. 11 

this P. R. 14 By P. R. Pen. trs. 15 more] moste Pen. trs, 16 

A paire of writing Tables P. R. Pen. trs. 17 thought Mann. La. 

Howard of Effingham Pen. trs. 20 wil] must P. R. 21 your om. 

P. R. '23 La, Kiddermaiste Mann.: no name Pen. trs. 24 gaine. .. 

shall] gaine nothing yet shall it Mann.: gives nought yet shall it Pen. trs.: gaine 

nought yet shall it P. R. 26 you in] in good Mann. P. R. Pen. trs.


(24) Scarfe. 

Take you this scarfe, binde Cupid hande and foote 

So love must aske you leave before he shoote 

(25) Falling bande. 

5 Fortune would have you rise, yett guides your hande 

From other lotts unto a falling bande. 

(26) Cuttwork stomacher. 

This stomacher is full of windowes wroughte 

Yet none throughe them can looke into your thoughte 

10 (27) Scisser Case. 

These scissers doe your huswiferye bewraye 

Thatt love to worke thoughe you be borne to playe 

(28) A Chaine. 

Because you scorne loves captive to remaine, 

15 Fortune hath sworne to leade you in a chaine 

(29) A Blanke. 

You faine would have butt whatt you cannott tell 

If fortune gives you nothing she doth well 

(30) Bracelets. 

20 Ladye your handes ar fallen into a snare 

For Cupids manacles your braceletts ar 

(31) Bodekin. 

Even w th this bodkin you may live unharmed 

Your beawtye is w tn virtue so well armed 

25 (32) A Blanke. 

You ar so dayntye to be pleased God wott 

Chance knowes nott whatt to give you for your lott 

3 must aske] shall Pen. trs. 6 unto] to take Pen. trs. P.R. 7 Cuttwork 

om. P. R. Pen. trs. 9 looke] see P. R. 10 A paire of Sizzers P. R. 

11 This sizer doth Pen.trs. 12 be] were P.R. 17 La. Digbye] Mres. 

Drury Pen. trs. 1 8 In giuing nothing fortune semes you well P. R. 20 

Conway MS. torn: the lot om. Pen. trs. 21 your] these P.R. 23 

w th ] by Pen. trs. 25 allotted to Mres Hastinges Pen. trs. 26 so] to 

Mann. 27 your] & P.R. 

Mother of 

ye maydes. 

La. Cum* 

berland. 

La. Walsingham. 

La. 

Newton. 

Mrs 

Wharton. 

La.Digbye. 

. . . liffe. 

La. 

Dorothye.

Mrs. 

Anselowe. 

This onely 

lelte undrawne. 

504 


(33) A Cushionett 

To hir that little cares whatt lott she winnes 

Chance gives a little cushionett for hir pinnes 

(34) A prayer booke. 

Your fortune may be good another daye 

Till fortune come take you a booke to praye 

ffinis 

3 a little] hir this Pen. trs. for hir] to sticke P. R. 5 may be] 

may prone P. R.: will prove Pen, trs. This ... undrawne] not drawne 

Mann.: La. Digby Pen. trs. 6 Till ... a] In the meane time take you this 

Pen. trs. 7 The Pen. trs. om. No. 30 and gives the follg. five additional 

lots ;— 

A country wenche. A pair of. sheres. 

You whisper many tales in many eares, 

To clipp your tongue )our lot's a paire of sheares. 

A country wenche. An apron. 

You love to make excuses for all thinges, 

An apron is your lott, which hath no stnnges. 

A country wench. A reele. 

You are high in the instepp, short in the heele, 

Your head is giddy, your lott is a reele. 

No name. A blank, 

fortune is bountifull, and from hir store 

Gives you as muche as you were worth before. 

No name. A blanke. 

For all thy witt, Fortune might favour thee, 

For God forbidd all fooles should happy bee.

THE KING OF DENMARK'S WELCOME. 

July, 1606. 

(Doubtful.) 

The King of Denmarkes welcome: Containing his ariuall, abode, 

5 and entertainement, both in the Citie and other places. Discite 

Io pean, Io bis discite pean. London Printed by Edward Allde. 

1606. 

(4°; 16 leaves, signed A-D3, D4 being blank. Br. Mus. 

press-mark C. 33. e. 7 (5).) 

10 ... Tuesday the xxij. of Iuly, and Wednesday the xxiij. were spent (P. 

in hunting at Eltham and in feasting. On Thursday the foure and 

twentyeth of Iuly, both the Kinges with their traincs, which contained 

great numbers, roade in progresse to Theobalds neare IValtham,... where 

vppon the approach of the Kinges Maiesties, there were manie verie 

15 learned, delicate and significant showes and deuises presented vnto them, 

which I wil omitte amply to discribe, because my coniecture may erre 

from the drift of the inuentor, and I hould it a capitall offence by a sleight 

imagination to misconster a fayre inuention; and there is no doubt but 

the author thereof who hath his place equall with the best in those Artes, 

20 will himselfe at his leasurable howers publish it in the best perfection. 

Yet to giue you a little taste of what came nearest to my vnderstanding, 

there was at the entrance of the Gates, planted a goodly Tree with leaues, 

and other ornaments resembling a great Oake: the leaues cut all out of 

greene (p. 13) silke, and set so artificially, that after certaine speeches 

25 deliuered, and Songes of Welcome sung, as the Kinges Majesties passed 

away, euen in a trice, all the leaues showred from the tree, both vppon 

the heads and Garments of both the Kinges, and of a great multitude of 

their followers: vppon euerie leafe beeing written in golde Letters this 

word (Welcome) and vppon some twice (Welcome) and the better to put 

30 your eares in tune, beeing duld with this my ill pend discourse, I wil set 

you downe heere the Song of Welcome, which was sung before both the 

Kings : The Stanzaes by a single voice, the Chorus by a whole consort 

of voices. 

The Song at Theobalds. (P. 

I 

35 euerie Ioy now had a tongue, 

And all the seuerall thoughts were sung, 

Vnder this happie roqfe, 

They could make proofe,


How much they doe reioyce, 

In one, the Maisters voice: 

and that is welcome still. 

Hayle double flame of Maiesties, 

Whose luster quickeris: blindes not eyes, 5 

Who euer saw such light 

would wish for night f 

Stay, stay, we may reioyce, 

And keepe our constant voice, 

which is your welcome still. 10 

When two Sunnes shine, the ample day 

Should not so haste it selfe away: 

A feare to loose destroyes 

almost our loyes, 

But we must so reioyce, 15 

As we make good our voice, 

of welcome, welcome still. 

Chorus. 

And would you euer stay, 

And make it lasting day, 20 

Tis welcome, welcome still. 

(P. 16) .... On Munday being the eight and twentie day of Iuly, both the 

Kinges Majesties after Dinner, departed in great state and gallantrie 

from Theobaldes . . . and thence returned backe vnto Grecnewich 

where they spent Tuesday . . . and Wednesday .... On Wednesday 25 

at night, the Youthes of Paules, commonlye cald the Children of Paules, 

plaide before the two Kings, a playe called Abuses: containing both 

a Comedie and a Tragedie, at which the Kinges seemed to take delight 

and be much pleased. 

(On Thursday July 31 the Kings rode in procession through London 30 

from the Tower to Whitehall. There were pageants and addresses in 

Cheapside, music from' the petty Canons & singing me* in St. Paul's 

Churchyard, and a Latin oration 'at Pauls schoole doore.') 

(P. 24) ... thence they road doune Ludgate-hill, till they came to Fleetstreet 

Cunduit, from whence as soone as the Kinges approched, was heard 35 

a moste excellent consort of stil musick, which inuiting the two Kings 

to lift vp their eyes, they might beholde a verie fine artificiall sommer 

bower of greene bowes diuided with curtaines of crimson taffatie, the top 

8 stay,] qy. ? that

KING OF DENMARK'S WELCOME 507 

of the Arbor made canapie wise and hung round about with this inscription, 

Deus nobis hœc ocia fecit; and after, amoste excellent song sung (Cowdray, 

dialogue wise, containing these wordes. p. 426 ) 

Shepheard: Sweet Ioe vouchsafe once to impart, 

5 did euer Hue so coy a lasse, 

that vnto loue was neuer moued? 

Shephardesse: Yes Shephard She that has the hart, 

and is resolud her life to passe: 

neither to loue or be beloued. 

10 He: She sencelesse Hues, without affection. 

She: Yet happie Hues, without subiection. 

He: To be pluckt are Roses blowne, 

To be mowed are meddowes growne: 

Iemtnes are made but to be showne, 

15 And woman's best 

She: To holde her owne. 

The Kings might behold within the Arbour, a faire Shepheard courting (P. 25) 

a Coy Shepherdesse, who had answered him that she would loue him, 

when she could behold two Sunnes at one time of equall brightnesse: 

20 when there were two Maiesties of like splendor or two Kings in one state, 

with many such like imagined impossibilities, which now he shewed her 

were come to passe, approouing those two kings glorious Suns, two 

Maiesties, and what else she had reputed impossible: After these 

speeches which held a pretty space, the Musicke plaied, and there was 

25 another song sung of farewell: at the ende whereof, the Kings Maiesties 

departed, and so roade along through Fleetstreete to Temple-barre, 

where the Lord Maior of the Citie taking his humble leaue of the two 

Kings, and receyuing many gracious thanks, had the sworde deliuered 

him backe, and himselfe redeliuered the Scepter, and so withall the rest 

30 of his brethren, who mounted vpon their foote-cloathes, richly trapt in 

golde trappers came to meete him, they departed into the Citie. The 

two Kings Maiesties in forme as at the first, keepe on their way from 

Temple-Barre, all through the Strande, so to Charing-crosse, and thence 

to White-hall, where dismounting about seauen of the clocke in the 

35 Euening, they feasted and reposed themselues there all that night

Epicedi 

turn. 

A FVNERAL 

Oration, vpon the death of the late 

deceased Princesse of famous 

memorye., Elizabeth by the grace of 

God, Queen of England, France 

and Ireland. 

Written : by Infelice Academtco Ignoto 

Wherunto is added, the true order of her 

Highnes Imperiall Funeral!. 

DEVICE 

E. R. 

LONDON 

Printed for E. White, dwelling neere the little 

north doore of Paules Church, at the signe of 

the Gun. 1603. 

1 Expicedium 2 

4 0 has 11 leaves, A-C 4. in fours, verso of title blank, A 2 (probab'y 

blank leaf) missing. Br Mus. under ' Elizabeth, Queen' (press-mark, 695. 

f. 8 (2)). A brief notice of it with extracts, but without suggestion as to 

authorship, occurs in Brydges' Restituta, vol. iv. pp. 10-14..

(sigA3 

recto) 

Epicedium. 

A Funerall Oration vpon the death of 

the late deceased Princesse, (of famous memo 

ry) Elizabeth by the grace of God Queene of England, 

France and Ireland: written by Injelice Acadcmico Jgnoto. 5 

F the sigh I 

es of the heart were conuerted into eloquSce of the 

tongue (as in the instruments of breath, the spirit is exchanged 

into soun'd) I would desire (right worthy Auditory) that all those 

sighes which are assembled together in your brests, might be 

centered in my heart: to the ende that my defect of eloquence to 10 

expresse this fatall accident, might be supplyed by my increased 

sorrowes, so happily conuerted into discourse. But since this my 

conceited desires may not be reduced to act, my wish were that this 

floud of teares, that makes his channell through our eyes, might like 

a riuer of fit discourse, flow from out my lippes; to the ende that 15 

the forecible weight of the same being inritched by these supplyes, 

might plant amazement in your eares, to heare the flowing eloquence 

of my tongue, and the boundles number of her praises. But why' 

spend I my breath in wishes ? or to what end fashion I my desires 

to be greater then my power? since your reuerent silence that 20 

attendeth my discourse is sufficient to giue worth to the weaknes of 

my performance, and her vertues worke wonder in the meanest 

Orator. But because a good life maketh only the (sig. A 3 verso) 

graue happie, and the glory that is deriued to after ages, dependeth 

on the actions of fore-passed yeeres: Let vs discourse a while on 25. 

that Elizabethes life, whose death wee lament with such hartie 

complaints. 

She was borne of a father of famous memory, Henry the eight, 

deriued from a mother of great vertue, Anne Bullein; and descended 

so royallie, and from so mightie Princes, that Europe knew not her 30 

equall, eyther in birth, bewtie, or perfection : Greater then Alexander 

she was, for the world which he subdued by force, she conquered by 

loue; her beautie was so great, that it rather was enuied then


equalled; beloued then praysed, admired then described. Her 

power so great that whole kingdomes were affrighted at her name, 

and many rich countries made happy by her protection; her learning 

so admirable that as from east and west many nations resorted 

5 to Rome: not for any wonder they expected in the Cittie, but onely 

to beholde Liuy: So many from all parts repayred to her kingdome, 

where eyther they were inchaunted with beauty, amased at her 

greatnes, enriched by her bountie, confirmed by her wisdome, or 

confounded in their Iudgments. Her chastitie so great, that the 

10 question is whether the conquest of her enemies wrought her more 

fame, or the continence and gouernement shee had in her selfe, 

more merrit : In a word, she enioyed so much grace, as all the 

graces possessed not together; and hee that had the grace to see 

her grace, accompted it his happinesse to be so graced. 

J 5 The desires her beauty kindled, her modesty quenched; the 

attempts which ambition inteded, her constancie ouercame: The 

peace which al kingdomes affected, her pollicy effected : and her 

state which her greatest foes enuied, her wisdom maintained: her 

countrie was the fortresse of banisht men : the sanctuary of the 

20 distressed : the harbour of the wronged : the enricher of her allies : 

the bane of her enemies: in a word, the world had nothing more 

praise-worthie in it, then that it knew her. I will not rip vp the rare 

perfections of her youth, neither her (sig. A 4 redo) fatall daunger 

before her comming to the Crowne, nor her sundrie good fortunes 

2 5 in the gouernment of her kingdome, nor the continuance of her 

peace, nor the prosperitie of her warres, least the memorie of these 

things added to her losse, should make our sorrowes stronger then 

our sufferance could admit of. But for my owne part I may say 

this of her, that if this Soueraigne Princesse had dyed among those 

30 ancient Thracianis, who wept at the birth of their children, and sung 

and feasted at their deaths: they would haue changed their custome, 

and bewayled her infinitely. For by her death, alas what 

miserie are wee not acquainted with ? wee lost that head whereof 

wee bee the members; the gouernesse of our fortunes and felicitie, 

35 the life of all our peace, the death of all our ioy. 

Since her departure, Iustice scale is distempered, prudence mirrour 

is dimmed, strength's pillers are shaken, Temperance vessell is 

emptied, the Oliue (that peace bare) is leaueles, the oyle of mercy 

is wasted, liberalities hands are closed; the head of magnificence 

40 droopeth, pittie hath hir smiles changed, the lawes are silent, and

512 A FUNERAL ORATION 

pardon tongueles. Alas what should I say ? if Petrarch knew not 

in what Sphere of Planets to lodge his Lawra, how shold I guesse 

in what order of Angels I should plat our Elizabeth ? dead she is, 

but so dead as she is pittied by death himselfe; who being senceles 

and passionles towards all other creatures, yet hath afforded her this 5 

priuiledge, to Hue in our sorowes. And to giue her place in heauen, 

what mortall apprehesion dare presume? since in earth our best 

hopes are wrapped in feare and trembling, and no man can beget 

that being for another which hee cannot assuredly hope for himselfe? 

what shee was whilst shee liued, wee iudge, but by the out-10 

side, the sence must informe the intellect before he can determine: 

what she is, for the earth we know, for the soule we leaue it with the 

Platonists, to infinitie: wherein, God that knoweth best of truth can 

informe truth. When Pelopidas the Theban, after he had manfully 

combated against Alexander Pheraus, was vnfortunately and (sig. 15 

A 4 verso) mortally wounded; the report is that the Thessalians 

that were present at that battell, neuer laid aside their armour nor 

drewe the reyne from their horses, neither tyed vp their woundes, 

vntill they had lamented him, armed and heat(ed) in the conflict, 

they ranne to comfort him; halfe breathles they clipped their horses 20 

manes, they shaued themselues: if colde made them chill, the fier 

of their zeale would not suffer them to kindle fire in their tents: 

their sorowes shut vp their stomacks from receauing meate : silence 

and mourning possessed the whole armie. And they that had 

gotten a victorie ouer fame by their conquest, by the losse of their 25 

generall, became slaues to their affections; when the Citties heard 

of his losse, the magistrate and meane men, the Prince and Plebeian 

came out to meete him: they fixed Crownes on his Hearse, cast 

flowers on his coarse, & stroue how to honour him being dead, that 

had so faithfully fought for them in life : yea his enemies contended 30 

with the conquerer for Funerall, think ; ng it a blessing to enioy his 

bones, whose valour had restrayned their ambition. If for Pelopidas 

the warriour, the Greekes were so passionate, what should wee bee 

in the losse of Elizabeth our peace-maker and Princesse, whose 

perfections are entombed in her enemies teares: whose losse hath 35 

made the mightie weake, the prudent diffident, the rich suspitious, 

the poore amazed, and all sorts hartles ? Pelopidas vertues were 

onely the obiects of Greece, Elizabeths the wonders of the world: 

he onely a subduer of a Cittie or prouince, she the terrour of many 

36 suspitions Q (turned u)


kingdomes: hee onely wonderfull in an Angle, She famous in the (Quarren. 

worlds fayre Anglia. don, P. 4 66 

But alas, why talke I of death in so diuine a subiect ? she liues as 

yet in the hartes of her gratefull subiects, because they might not 

5 dye with her; liuing, they keepe her aliue in their louing hartes, 

the memorie of her death in their teares, her name in their tongues, 

her wordes in their eares, her liuely Image in their lasting imaginations 

: her mightines in her is an admirable miracle, where nobilitie 

in the vitious is a grieuous infamie. 

10 (Sig. B recto) Heere like a true Joseph hath she lost this cloake 

of mortalitie, to obtaine an immortall Crowne of glorye, and to 

escape the embracements of the lewde worlde. How happily hath 

she cast off the prison of her mortalitie ? how happy is she by death, 

that is delinered fro the troubles of life? The enamoured Thisbe to 

15 flye from the iawes of a hungrie Lyonesse, cast off her vayle that 

shadowed her shoulders; so this beloued of Christ, to escape that 

Lyon of perdition, that raging wandreth to seeke whom he may 

deuour, hath disburdened her selfe of her earthly ornamets, hath 

choakte the rauenous enemie of mankinde, by casting her earth in 

20 his teeth : Happy happy Elizabeth, that hath forsaken the Babilon 

of this world, to obtaine her Countrie the heauely Paradice. 

The Moone (as the Philosophers write) is ecclipsed by the shadow 

of the earth, and nothing more obscureth the soule then the prison (Camp. 

2. 30-6) 

of the bodye. Since therfore our Elizabeth hath cast off her earthly 

25 vayle to get a heauenly Priuiledge; let vs moderate our passions by 

imagining her felicitie, since what she lost was not in her possession 

to keep; and what she hath, is a greater purchase then coniecture 

can apprehend. 

The generous young man Crates, forsooke his possessions to buye (Eupk 

30 an heritage in Philosophye. Diogines left his Countrie and house. 3081.23 

Democritus lost his eyes, to apprehend knowledge. How farre better 

a match hath our Soueraigne made, that for her possessions in earth, 

hath got the Paradice in heauen ? that for her earthlye prison, hath 

attayned a heauenly mantion ? that for her eyes that beheld the 

35 vanities on earth, hath gotten the meanes to beholde the paradice 

of heauen ? Plato in his lawe, interdicted the vse of lamentation in 

Funerals, neither thought he it requisit to lament publiquelie, or 

conuey the Coarse to his Tombe with teares and sorowfull exclamations, 

because (as the Philosophers say) teares yeild no remedye in 

40 tribulation. But had Plato liued to beholde these times, and con- 

BOMD I L 1

514 A FUNERAL ORATION 

sidered the blessings we possessed whilste she liued; how carefully 

she guided the helme of (the) common-weale, and faithfully defenced 

her Countrye from no- (sig. B verso) uations; how prouidently she 

fore-stalled the audacious designes of her enemies; how constantly 

she with-stood her greatest dangers; he would doutles haue remitted 5 

a great part of his austeritie, and saluted her Hearse with some 

lamentable Elegie. 

There is a Lake (as Aristotle reporteth) neere vnto the riuer of 

Eridanus, wherin (if any Poets fiction may beare credit of faith) 

proud Phaeton being strooken with lightning, was finally drowned. 10 

The water of this Lake is in qualitie hot, in odour greeuous, fearfull 

in beholding. Heerof no creature drinketh, but he dyeth: 

heer-ouer no bird flyeth, but he is drowned. Of the nature of this 

riuer, is her losse we lament for: The proudest enemie that beholdeth 

it is drowned in confusion : The teares that are wept on it, if 

blinde the eyes with their scalding. 

The odours that perfume her Hearse, are of the nature of vapours 

drawne vp by the Sun, which ascend in fume but desend in shewers. 

He that beholdeth this Hearse, how can he choose but feare, since 

ouer it he may meditate on the vncertainties of life ? what brutish or 20 

sauadge nature, beholding this sight and feeding his eyes on her 

Monument, but will dye with sorow ? or what soule houering in the 

ayre ouer this disconsolate Hearse, dissolueth not into teares? (if 

exempted soules may be subiect to passions.) 

I am amazed and can no more, and your iudgements shall require 25 

no further discourse at my hands: the reason is, because others 

glories may be expressed in words and writings, whereas hers cannot 

be aptly described but in wonder and silence. I will therfore 

supply with my teares, what I fayle in my wordes: & if any aske 

why I end so abruptlye: let the Poet answer who can truly iudge of 30 

passion, Curce hues loquntur ingentes stupent. 

Dixi. 

(sig. B 2 recto) 

A true Subiects s or owe, for the losse 

of his late Soueraigne. 

I 

loyne not handes with sorowe for a while, 35 

• To soothe the time, or please the hungrie eares: 

4 constancy Q

A FUNERAL ORATION 

Nor do inforce my mercinarie stile, 

No feigned liuerye my Inuention weares. 

Nor do I ground my fabulous discourse 

On what before hath vsually bene seene: 

5 My greife doth flowe from a more plentious source, 

From her that dy'd a virgin and a Queene. 

You Cristall Nimphes that haunt the banks of Thames, 

Tune your sad Timbrils in this wofuli day : 

And force the swift windes and the sliding streames 

10 To stand a while and listen to your Lay. 

Your fading Temples bound about with yewe, 

At euery step your hands deuoutly wring, 

Let one notes fall anothers height renewe, 

And with compassion your sad Ncenia sing. 

] 5 Graces and Muses waite vpon her Hearse: 

Three are the first, the last the sacred Nine: 

The sadst of which, in a blacke tragique verse, 

Shall sing the Requiem passing to her shrine. 

(Sig. B 2 

An Ebon Charriot to support the Beere, 

20 Drawne with the blacke steedes of the gloomy night: 

Stooping their stiife Crests, with a heauie cheere, 

Stirring compassion in the peoples sight. 

The Pyle prepard where on her body lyes, 

In Cipresse shadowes sit you downe forlorne : 

25 Whose bowes be dew'd with plenty of your eyes, 

(For her with griefe) the Branches shall adorne. 

Let fall your eye-lids like the Sunnes cleere set, 

When your pale hands put to the vestall flame : 

And from your brests, your sorowes freely let, 

30 Crying one Beta and Elizas name. 

Vpon the Alter, place your Virgin spoyles, 

And one by one with comelinesse bestowe: 

Dianaes buskins and her hunting toyles, 

Her empty quiuer and her stringles bowe. 

Ll2

5i6 A FUNERAL ORATION 

Let euery Virgin offer vp a teare, 

The richest Incence nature can alowe: 

And at her tombe (for euer yeare by yeare) 

Pay the oblation of a mayden vowe. 

And the tru'st vestall the most sacred liuer, 5 

That euer harbored an vnspotted spirit, 

Retaine thy vertues, and thy name for euer, 

To tell the world thy beautie and thy merrit. 

(Sig. B 3 recto) 

Wher's Collin Clout, or Rowland now become, 

That wont to leade our Shepheards in a ring? 

(Ah me) the first, pale death hath strooken dombe, 

The latter, none incourageth to sing. 

But I vnskilfull, a poore Shepheards Lad, 

That the hye knowledge onely doe adore : 

Would offer more, if I more plenty had, 15 

But comming short, of their aboundant store, 

A willing heart that on thy fame could dwell, 

Thus bids Eliza happily farewell. 

FINIS. 

Sig. B 3 verso is blank, and sigs. B4-C4 are occupied by the ' True Order ' of 

the funeral, i.e. an enumeration of the officials and individuals taking part in the 

procession ' from White-hall to the Cathedral Church of Westminster. The 28. 

day of Aprili. 1603.'; at the beginning, end, and two interior points of which are 

some inferior verses—but I apprehend th-t Lyly had no hand in this part of 

the tract. 

I0

NOTES 

ENTERTAINMENTS. 

P. 410. AT THE TILT-YARD : A Sonet: given first, though not the 

earliest of these Tilt-Yard Speeches, because Segar's chapter forms the 

best introduction to them. It was assigned to George Peele by Dyce 

(1839) and succeeding editors, only because it appears at the end of 

Peele's Polyhymnia . . . Printed by Richard J hones. 1590,4°, a blankverse 

description (written of course later) of the occasion at which this 

' Sonet' was sung. In the Drummond copy of Polyhyntnia in the 

Edinburgh University Library, ' finish ' is printed at the end of Peele's 

poem, and the ' Sonet' appended on the verso of the leaf without initials 

or signature of any kind. A MS. of Polyhymnia in some Oxfordshire 

house, from which Dyce supplied the defects of the slightly-mutilated 

Drummond copy, lacks, he tells us, the ' Sonet'; which is, further, found 

without the Polyhymnia in the Garrick Collection, whence it was reprinted 

by Beloe (Anec. of Lit. vol. ii. p. 5). I submit that there is no 

good evidence of Peele's authorship. The second stanza reproduces 

Lyly's phrases and ideas, and I make no doubt that it is really his ; 

copied, possibly, by Peele at the end of his own Polyhymnia MS. as 

a good poem (by a friend ? and possible collaborator in the lost Hunting 

of Cupid'?—the Lylian trace is very marked in Drummond's fragmentary 

notes) on the same occasion (given in Dyce's Peele, ed. 1861, pp. 603-4). 

A like cause may have led Collier to suppose the Gardener's and Molecatcher's 

speeches at Theobalds, May, 1591, speeches indisputably Lyly's, 

to be, like the Hermit's speech on the same occasion, by Peele. Lyly's 

position in the Revels Office, apart from his repute as the Court dramatist, 

would single him out as the proper person to devise such a show 

as Segar describes, even had not Sir Henry Lee sought his aid before 

(cf. below, and Biograph. Appendix, p. 384). The present, however, is 

probably the occasion of his introduction to George Clifford, third Earl 

of Cumberland, 1558-1605, who employs him later. A variation of the 

poem in four stanzas, of which the fourth is our third, introducing the 

Latin beginnings of various Psalms, is found in Rawlinson MS. Poet. 

148, f. 19, subscribed ' q d S r Henry Leigh'; and in Robert Dowland's 

Mvsicall Banqvet, 1610, No. 8 is a poem assigned to ' Sir Henry Lea,' 

consisting of four stanzas written after Elizabeth's death which recall the 

vein and some phrases of this ' Sonet.'

518 NOTES 

P. 412. A CARTELL FOR A CHALLENG : this and the two following 

speeches formed part of a manuscript collection made by Henry Ferrers 

(1549-1633) of Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire, from which William 

Hamper in 1820 printed them, and the Quarrendon speeches below, under 

the title of Masques : Performed before Queen Elizabeth. From a coeval 

copy .... Chiswicky Printed by C. Whittingham, College House, 1820. 

In his Introduction Mr. Hamper supposed these three speeches to be 

delivered at the Tilt-yard on the occasion of Sir Henry Lee's resignation 

of the Championship in 1590, and the remainder at Quarrendon on 

Elizabeth's visit in 1592, attributing them all to George Ferrers of the 

Mirrourfor Magistrates and The Princely Pleasures, who, however, died 

in 1579. I have no hesitation in assigning them all to Lyly, on grounds 

of style, matter, and general correspondence to other speeches also 

assigned to him, e. g. the opening words of this Cartell, the likeness in 

tone and conception of the two first to that delivered by the Earl of 

Cumberland in 1600 (pp. 415-6), and the dialogue at Quarrendon between 

Constancy and Liberty, which is redolent of Lyly. I regard all 

these Tilt-yard speeches as incidents in a long connexion of Lyly with 

Lee and the Earl of Cumberland, of which we see other signs in his 

election to Parliament for Aylesbury in Feb. 1592-3 and Oct. 1601, and 

for Appleby in Sept. 1597 (Life, p. 48). And Mr. Hamper is obviously 

wrong in assigning these three speeches to Nov. 17, 1590. There is 

nothing internal to connect the two first, which, being to the same effect, 

are probably for different occasions, with any particular place, though it 

may be the Tilt-yard; the second seems to belong to some date anterior 

to 1590, or, if the occasion be that referred to in the first Quarrendon 

speech, it may be the Tilt-yard, 1591 ; and the third, in which the 

retired champion, who still, Segar tells us, continued to preside over 

the annual occasion, presents his son, must be in some subsequent year, 

1592 or later. 

P. 413, 1. SHAMPANIE: lists or field of contention, Fr. campagne 

(Hamper); but more probably the reference is to the tilt run by Sir 

Henry and others at Greenwich to pleasure Le Champany or De Champany, 

ambassador from the Low Countries. See Nichols' Progresses, iii. 

p. 50. 

11. posting horse: that on which he rode hither. 

15. THE OWLD KNIGHT : Sir Henry Lee, born 1530, died 1610. 

27. end . . . contynuance: this merely forced antithesis is thoroughly 

Lylian ; see above, p. 121 bott. 

31. oneley sonne: he had two sons, John and Henry, both of whom 

died while yet under age; Lipscomb's Hist, of Bucks, ii. 405. 

P. 414, 5. this little: a word possibly omitted ; no doubt some piece 

of jewellery. Cf. Quarrendon, p. 455. 

15. ODE. Of Cynthia : printed anonymously in Davison's Poetical

SPEECHES AT THE TILTYARD AND THEOBALDS 519 

Rapsody, 1602. Nothing to show whether the 'shew' was at the Tiltyard, 

Westminster, at Greenwich, or some other of the royal palaces, or 

at one of Cumberland's own castles, Appleby or Bromeham in Westmoreland, 

or Skipton in Yorks. Nor can I urge more than a possibility of 

Lyly's authorship: the verses are more like Sir John Davies'. Cf, 

note on Harefield Ent. authorship, p. 535 below. A clumsy stanza of 

Cumberland's appears as No. 1 in Robert Dowland's Mvsicall Bangvet, 

1610. 

P. 415,10. A COPIE OF MY LORD OF COMBRLANDE'S SPEECHE, &C. : 

the date shows the occasion to be the anniversary of the Queen's accession. 

Whitaker (Hist, of Craven, p. 357) implies that it is in Cumberland's 

autograph and of his authorship. The authorship at least is Lyly's, 

by the style, the allusions to the Twins of Hippocrates (Euph. ii. 5 1. 13), 

Ixion embracing a shadow (vol. ii. 454 1. 44), nightshade as a solace 

(poem on the Bee, vol. iii. p. 497 1. 10), and the tone of sadness affected, 

as above, pp. 412-3, and cf. Endim. ii. 1. 8-16, 41. Cumberland's own 

letters, of which Whitaker prints several, seem illiterate. The speech, 

though introductory of the sad Knight, may refer to Cumberland's own 

losses and sacrifices in naval adventure; or the sad Knight may even be. 

Lyly himself, his patron consenting to subserve his purpose of complaint. 

P. 416, 5. wrappes up: absorb, carry off—a confusion with rape ? 

27. wheeld about . . . will wheele: like Ixion ; cf. 11. 32-4, below. 

P. 417,1. AT THEOBALDS: GARDENER'S SPEECH: the occasion of 

this and the following speech was the Queen's visit to Theobalds in May, 

1591, proved by the mention of ' Pymms,' and of ' thirty-three years' 

since 1558 in the inscription on the box. In Burleigh's diary (Murdin, 

p. 796) occurs—'1591. May 10. The Queen came to Theobalds from 

Hackney. May 16. The Queen dyned abrode in the Chamb. called the 

Queens Arbor in Company of the French Ambassador and L.' This is 

probably the arbour and gardens which the Gardener says were devised 

at Pymmes by ' the youngest son of this honourable old man,' i. e. by Sir 

Robert Cecil, Burleigh's second son. If we may trust the Hermit's 

Speech, written by Peele for this occasion, and the mock writ which 

formed its sequel (Nichols' Progresses, iii. 74-5), Burleigh had, for some 

years past, when not at Court, oeen living in retirement (at Pymmes ?), 

leaving Theobalds in occupation of Sir Robert. Collier first printed the 

Hermit's Speech {Hist, Dram. Poet. i. 274-9) signed 'Finis. G. P.' from 

a MS. in his possession; and Dyce, reprinting it in his edition of Peele, 

appended these two, as delivered on the same occasion, 'from a MS. in 

Peele's.handwriting, which has been obligingly lent to me by Mr. Collier, 

who was not possessed of it when he gave his excellent History to the 

public,' giving no further proof of Peele's authorship. Mr. Bullen 

followed Dyce in printing all three as Peele's ; but no one really familiar 

with Lyly's work will question his authorship of the two prose ones, which

520 NOTES 

teem with his phrases and ideas, while the inscription on the box is 

exactly modelled on the doggrel oracles of Mother Bombie (iii. i. 40 ; 4. 

121, 143, 149, 162, 177; v. 2. 16). Peele may have copied them, as 

a friend's work, to complete his record of the occasion ; but does not 

seem to have signed them. Cf. the parallel case of the Sonet above. 

Nichols was wrong in printing Davies' Conference betweene a Gent. 

Huisher and a Post . . . at Mr. Secretary's house (Harl. MS. 286, 

ff. 248-9) as part of the same occasion; for Cecil, though knighted now 

(May 20), was not made Secretary till 1596. 

8. At Pymnis-, some four miles hence: Dyce queries Mimmsl i.e. 

the manor of N. Mimms, 7 m. west of Theobalds, held at this time by 

Sir Ralph Coningsby, sheriff of Herts (Salmon's Hist, of Herts, p. 63). 

But Norden's Speculum Britannia. The first pa?'te . . . Middlesex 

• • . 1593? 4°, p. 18, mentions Pymmes 'a proper little house of the Right 

Hon ble . Lord Burghley'; and in the Calendar of Hatfield MSS. vol. iii. 

p. 204, Gilbert Talbot dates a letter to Burleigh ' At your Lordships 

house at Pymes, this 20 th of December 1586.' Bacon's Atlas, 1891, 

marks ' Pymmes Park ' at Edmonton, six miles south of Theobalds, just 

west of the great north road. Lyson's Env. of Lond. 1795, vol ii• P- 2 59, 

says it was named after a family settled at Edmonton, temp. Ed. II, and 

is mentioned among the property of which Robert Earl of Salisbury died 

seised in 1612. The village of Pimsbrook lies a little to the west. 

26. partly'-coloured: parti-coloured. ' Partly-coloured harts-ease,' 

Greene's Qvip, sig. B, ed. 1620 (Dyce). 

P. 418, 1. arbour all of eglantine: the plant specially associated with 

Elizabeth, e. g. above (Tilt-yard), p. 411 top, below, p. 474 1. 23 ; ' the sun 

of Spain ' of course alluding to the Armada. In the Cal. of Hatfield MSS. 

vol. iv. p. 394, under date Oct. 20, 1593, in an inventory of linen to 

be used at her next visit, occurs ' cloths for the rock in the Queens 

Harbour.' 

S. the box: the vehicle for the usual costly present; cf. ' My jewel' 

in the inscription. 

16. cony-gat : rabbit-burrow; ME. gate, way, path. 

35. Hackney: Cal. of Hatfield MSS. vol. iv. p. 115 'A short progress 

of Her Majesty. 1591 May.—Tuesday the 4 th May from Greenwich 

to Hackney, and there six days. Monday the 10 th May from Hackney 

to Theobalds, and there four days,' &c.; but the visit was prolonged. 

P. 421. COWDRAY ENTERTAINMENT : the edition from which I print is 

obviously older than Nichols' quarto, and contains very little beyond the 

actual speeches and verses. As in the case of Elvetham, and the Bisham, 

&c. Speeches, Lyly probably sold the bare MS. of the speeches to the 

printer, who supplied the brief necessary framework (cf. p. 4301. 1 ' because 

I was not there,' &c). With the later amplification, chiefly to introduce 

some notabilities by name, Lyly probably had nothing to do: as with the

COWDRAY ENTERTAINMENT 521 

Elvetham Ent., it might be the work of the noble host's secretary, though 

the omission of the three poems may be merely due to Nichols. 

P. 421, 4. in Progresse: from London she visited in August Sir 

William More at Loseley near Guildford: and thence proceeded (probably 

on the i8th,not 14th—on the 16th she is still near Guildford—Nichols, iii. 

84—yet 0 is particular, p. 422 1. 7) 10 miles to dine at Farnham Castle, 

continuing on the same day some 20 miles southwards to Cowdray, just 

east of Midhurst in Sussex. Her subsequent stages included Chichester, 

Petworth, Stanstead, and Portsmouth (Nichols, iii. 80-1, 96-7). 

6. Lord Montacute: Anthony Browne, first Viscount Montague 

(1526-92), owner also of Battle Abbey, a staunch Roman Catholic, but 

on the whole loyal to the throne. The resort of Catholics to Cowdray was 

uninterfered with by the government, and Montacute sat at the trial of 

the Queen of Scots, 1587. His first wife, Lady Jane Ratcliff, died in 

childbirth of the eldest son Anthony ; his second, Magdalen Dacre, bore 

him five sons and three daughters, and was present on this occasion (we 

gather from Q 2 ), as were her eldest and third sons, George and Henry, 

and the eldest daughter Elizabeth, married to Sir Robert f Dormer 

(Nichols' Preface, ed. 1823, p. xxviii). 

9. Thomas Scarlet : printer of Midas, 1592, 4 0 , and Mother Bombie, 

1594,4°. 

P. 422, 10. bridge : over the Arun, which runs through the park. 

14. Saterday : the dates affixed to the days in Nichols' Progresses, 

1823, are probably his own addition. 

P. 423, 10. Tuus, O Regina, &c.: Virg. ÆEn. i. 80-1. 

16. shot at the Deere: the Countess of Kildare, who joined the 

shooting, was Elizabeth Fitzgerald, ne'e Howard, daughter of the Lord 

Admiral. 

P. 424, 11. the Priory. ' must be that of Esseburn, Esebnrn or 

Oseburn, near Midhurst, founded by Sir John Bohun, temp. Henry iii' 

(Nichols' Pref. p. xxviii). 

12. her Lordcs: Burleigh dates ' from the Court at Cowdrain, 

August 18, 1591 ' (Rymer, Fosd. vol. xvi. p. 116). 

26. rough-hewed: i.e. hued, hisface stained, or—' rough' as p. 480 1.6. 

P. 425, 32. on copheigth : from the height or vantage of a cop or crest: 

cf. N.E.D., s. v. cop sb. ii. 8. 

38. clemencie . . . tasted: he had been largely implicated by Barker's 

confessions in the Ridolfi conspiracy of 1571 ; see Murdin, pp. 104-5, & c - 

P. 427, 11. The Anglers Speech is redolent of Euphues and Endimion; 

but, further, the technical knowledge it shows may, like the 

knowledge of hawking and hunting shown elsewhere, be a reflection 

of Lyly's connexion with the Office of Tentes and Toyles. 

P. 428, 4. Noble: 6s. Sd. (gold). 

5. maydes: the fish called ' mermaides,' Elvetham Ent., p. 449 1. 12.

522 NOTES 

27. states: cf. Quarrendon, p. 456 1.11, and Whip, vol. ill- 4 20 1• 103 

'Ye States and Nobles of this land.' 

30. picke ouen pitch above—an obsolete variant. 

P. 429, 7. hit: i. e. light. 

Note, the Lorde Admirall of Q 2 is Lord Howard of Effingham. 

Of the rest here named, Glemham married Anne, d. of Thos. Sackville, 

Earl of Dorset, Parker had some considerable military fame, and Goring 

and Caryll are unimportant. 

P. 431. ELVETHAM ENTERTAINMENT: 'j die Octobris 1591 John wolf 

Entred for his copie, the honorable entertaynement gyven to the quenes 

maiestie in progresse at Elvetham in Hampshire by the righte honorable the 

Erle of Hertford .. . vjd,' Sta. Reg. (ed. Arb.) ii. 596. In this case the absence 

of prose speeches makes Lyly's authorship less obvious. The noneuphuistic 

narrative is clearly not his. Though its style is not perhaps 

markedly distinct from the narrative style of the Glasse, yet he could 

hardly divest himself so completely of habits of composition strongly 

visible at Cowdray a month before; and he would have avoided the inartistic 

explanations of pp. 433-4, 441-2. But since the action as described in 

the narrative is throughout in close relation with the set speeches, it seems 

clear that the author of the latter devised the whole entertainment and 

must have collaborated loosely with the narrator. The latter was probably 

some confidential secretary of Lord Hertford's, who could best supply 

details of the landscape, domestic, or culinary effects he had helped to 

organize, while Lyly could impart to him the musical details in which the 

tract abounds. To the same hand we may attribute the added matter of 

the third edition, in which room is also found for some additional verses 

by the poet. To the actual songs and speeches I have felt that Watson 

might urge some claim ; because the Latin verse is much better than 

Lyly's elsewhere, and Watson is about the best Latin verse-writer of his 

day (cf. ' Doctior est nobis,' ' Fronte serenata,' 11. 16, 22 of the Poet's 

speech, with 11.13,29 of the' Protrepticon' to the Hecatompathia), because 

the song ' With fragrant flowers,' p. 439, is signed ' Tho. Watson' in 

Englands Helicon (1600), because ' a second Sunne,' p. 444, is applied to 

his mistress several times in the Hecatotnpathia (sonnets 35, 39, 44), 

where, too, an Echo is employed (son. 25), while Watson's knowledge of 

music and musicians was probably in advance of Lyly's dwn. But 

Watson would hardly remain anonymous, nor, perhaps, describe himself 

as ' modicum poetam,' 436 1. 2, while for the 'anonymity and the modesty 

we have parallels in Lyly's case. No connexion between Watson and 

Hertford is recorded, nor does other dramatic work of his survive ; while 

Lyly's position and experience in the Revels Office would make him 

a natural person from whom to seek aid in such devices. The blank verse 

exactly resembles in movement, and mediocrity, much of that in The 

Woman; where, too, we find 'a second sonne' (i. 1. 80), 'But all in

ELVETHAM ENTERTAINMENT 523 

vaine' (Prol. 1. 9, and here, p. 442 1. 22), and the very striking reproduction, 

with the same double arrangement, of the verses handed to Elizabeth 

by Sylvanus (iii. 1. 111-5, and here, p. 445 11.33-6). Watson doesn't 

deal in fairies; and some of the songs seem too slight for him, e. g. 

' Elisa is the fairest Queene,' which is very like ' Happie houre, happie 

daie,' of the Quarrendon Speeches, p. 463, while Sylvanus, and his grief 

at the Queen's departure, are suggested by Sylvanus' lamenting speech 

in Gascoigne's Princely Pleasures, from which Lyly borrows elsewhere. 

On p. 445 1. 28 we have the proverb about water as a cure for wantonness, 

as in M. Bomb. iii. 4. 24-5. In the Poet's speech, too, we have 

Lyly's favourite allusion to Baucis and Philemon, his borrowing of the 

line ' Dicite 16 Pæan' as elsewhere, and his constant trick of personifying 

Envy in opposition to the Queen. On the whole, while some collaboration 

between the two friends, both living in St. Bartholomew's (W. died 

Sept. 1592), is possible, Lyly's claim seems good enough to all except 

the song ' With fragrant flowers '•—cf. note on p. 439 1. 28. 

4. in Progresse: the same as that of Cowdray. From Portsmouth 

she visited the Earl of Southampton at Titchfield at the beginning 

of September, then Southampton, Winchester, Farley near Basing (about 

the 13th), and Odiham, reaching Elvetham, in the north-east corner of 

the county, on the 20th. She quitted Elvetham on Thursday the 23rd, was 

at Farnham Castle on the 24th, and Sutton Place on the 26th, whence 

she returned to Richmond (Nichols, iii. 98-100, 121). 

6. the Earle of Hertford: Edward Seymour, eldest (1539 ?-1621) surviving 

son of the Protector Somerset. Created Earl of Hertford by 

Elizabeth, he angered her by marrying a sister of Lady Jane Grey, and 

was fined £5000 and imprisoned till his wife's death in 1568. His second 

wife, Frances Howard, daughter of Lord Howard of Effingham, was the 

hostess on this occasion. See essay on Endim. vol. iii. p. 99. 

P. 432, 19. fourteene score (sc. yards): a measure in archery; cf. 

2 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 52. 

28. Chaundrie: place for candles. Ewery: for ewers, table-linen 

and towels. 

P. 433, 25. priuie: privet, used in Breton. 

P. 434, 7. vltimum in executione, &c.: theological commonplace about 

the creation of man, or of woman. Cf. Euph. ii. p. 86 1. 5 note. 

28. her owne house: ' Odiam, now famous for a royal palace,' 

Camden, Britt. i. 121. 

P. 435, 1. veridicus vales, &c.: i. e. Lyly himself, who doubtless furnished 

these explanations. Cothumatus (below), properly of tragic poets, 

but also of serious and lofty verse. The writer seems to be recalling Senec. 

Ep. i.8 ' Quam multa Publilii non excalceatis, sed cbthurnatis dicenda sunt!' 

21. lituris: Ov. Tr. iii. 1. 15 ' Littera suffusas quod habet maculosa 

lituras.'

524 

NOTES 

26. Philmtnonis: Ov. Met. viii. 629 sqq. 

P. 436, 18. Limulus: apparently of sidelong motion. In Plaut. Bacch 

v. 2. 12 Mimulis (oculis) intuentur.' 

37. castr(q$ superni Custodes: //. v. 749 

P. 437, 4. Dicite 10 Penan, &c.: Ov. Ar. Am. ii. 1. Cf. Mid. v. 3.135 ; 

King's Welc. p. 505. 

22. vnacqnainted light: again, p. 444 1. 5, and Loves Met. i. 2. 145. 

P. 439, 6. to malice: Euph. ii. 41 1. 23 'I malice you,' and 139 

I.18. 

24. second Troy: Spenser had used ' Troynovant' for London, F. Q. 

iii. 9. 45- 

28. with verdure newly dig/it: confirming the title of the song in 

EnglandsHelicon, 'The Nimphes meeting their May Queene, entertaine 

her with this Dittie,' where it is subscribed ' Tho. Watson/ Possibly first 

composed, whether by Watson or Lyly, for a royal maying at Greenwich, 

or for the entertainment of this year at Theobalds. The line ' O beauteous 

Queene of second Troy' occurs in a May poem addressed to Elizabeth 

and printed in Watson's The first set of Italian Madrigals, 1590, 4 0 

(Collier's Biol. Cat. ii. 494), and I incline to his authorship of this song. 

Antony Nixon in Great Brittaines Generall Joyes (noticed by Collier, 

Bibl. Cat. ii. 51) plagiarized and padded it out into a stanza of eight 

decasyllable lines. 

P. 440, 21. Thomas Morley: 1557-1604? Our text shows he was 

made organist long before 1591. See Diet. Nat. Biog. 

P. 441, 13. foure . . . Gentlemen: for the first, second, and fourth 

(Carew) see Diet. Nat. Biog. Maruin must be of the Mervyns of Petersfield, 

Hants. 

16. some deuise: these water-sports were suggested to Hertford by 

those at Kenilworth in 1575. 

P. 443,9. neuer yet. .. Nereus .. . vaine: so below, p. 446 ' who neuer 

sings but truth.' Hesiod. Theog. 233 TO 

Uovros. 

P. 445, 9. printing oracles . .. leafe: favourite notion with Lyly. Cf. 

Euph. ii. 113 1. 22 ' an enchaunted leafe, a verse of Pythia.' 

33. A'oniis prior, &c.: lines reproduced, with the same inversion of 

them, by Pandora in her prophetic vein, Woman, iii. 1. 111-5. 

P. 446, 26. the Bonaduenture: the Earl of Cumberland commanded 

a Queen's ship called the ' Elizabeth Bonaventur,' of 600 tons, against the 

Armada in 1588 ; it had been Drake's flagship in 1585. 

P. 447, 15. The Plowmans Song: the earliest printed form of this 

charming song, which Elizabeth had the taste to admire. It was reprinted 

in Englands Helicon, 1600, with title ' Phillida and Coridon' and signature 

'N. Breton'; and was, says Hazlitt (Handbook, p. 60) 'afterwards

ELVETHAM ENTERTAINMENT 

produced as a separate publication under the title of the Shepherds 

Delight (Roxb. Ball. i. 188).' It appears also in Rawlinson MS. Poet. 

85 (assigned Mate in 16th cent.'), fol. 3, with several slight variations, 

signed ' Britton, 1 and near others similarly signed. Grosart printed it 

among Breton's works from a MS. of the late F. W. Cosens (which he 

dates 1586-96), where it is copied without signature but with several 

others of Breton's. Probably it is his, since it forms no part of any 

device and is merely introduced by the musicians ; but there is the possibility 

that it is Lyly's, its anonymity causing the ascription to Breton, 

whose other Phyllida-and-Corydon pieces are not in couplets, nor yet 

in this rapid and deftly-touched manner. Collier (Bibl. Cat. i. 81) claimed 

for Breton The Passionate Shepherd of 1604, on the ground of some likeness 

to the diction of this poem, viz. to 11. 4-6 of p. 448. 

P. 448, 16. bord and cord: Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, bk. ii. p. 75, 

quoting this without further detail, suggests that Fives is a derivative from 

this game of five to five. 

P. 449, 12. Mermaides: cf. Cowdray Ent. p. 428 1. 5. 

19. leaches: jelly, of cream, isinglass, sugar, and almonds (Halliwell). 

32. Aureola, the Queene of Fairy land: in these most interesting 

lines we have the elves of Teutonic superstition, living underground, 

dancing in rings at night, and possessed of supernatural attributes and 

powers of blessing and cursing, conjoined with (1) Auberon (Oberon), the 

fairy-king of romance, familiar to English readers from Lord Berners' 

translation of Huon de Bordeaux (1st ed. c. 1534, 2nd 1570), and (2) anew 

feature, the fairy-queen Aureola, who seems, from the line about the 

nightly-falling stars, to be a personification of the Earth itself. Chaucer 

in his Marchantes Tale had made the classical underworld-rulers, Pluto 

and Proserpina (confessedly taken from Claudian), sovereigns of an 

English fairy-world, which dances in pleasant spots and interests itself 

in mortal affairs. Lyly, as we saw, p. 401, had found his way to Chaucer 

before the writing of Gallathea and Endimion, and had introduced 

fairies in both those plays ; and his conception of the fairy-queen may 

possibly be coloured by the following lines from Claudian's Raptus Proserpinae, 

ii. 294-9 : 

'quicquid 'quidus complectitur aer 

Quicquid alit tellus, quicquid salis aequora verrunt, 

Ouod rluvii volvunt, quod nutrivere paludes, 

Cuncta tuis pariter cedent animalia regnis, 

Lunari subiecta globo ; qui Septimus auras 

Ambit et aeternis mortalia separat astris.' 

The name Aureola, which is not classical nor yet Spenserian, was applied 

mediaevally to the celestial crown assigned to virgins ; and was chosen by 

Lyly probably with reference to the actual flower-crown she here offers to 

a virgin-queen. In effect it is equivalent to Titania, which Ovid uses for;

526 NOTES 

Diana. Whether Lyly had any near predecessor in this fairy-sketch, to 

which he adds somewhat at Quarrendon in the following year (pp. 454-7), 

must remain uncertain. Greene's James the Fourth, which introduces 

Oberon dancing with fairies, and to which I conceive Shakespeare was 

indebted in several points, is of unknown date (ent. S. R. 1594, printed 

1598): but Halliwell in his folio edition of Shakespeare (16 vols. 1853-65, 

vol. v. p. 86), after a loose and incorrect notice of this Elvetham Entertainment 

of 1591, mentions that in Greene's Groatsworth of Witte, 1592, 

a player boasts of having performed the part of the King of Fairies with 

applause—he was, he says, ' famous for Delphrygus, and the King of the 

Fairies.' Much of the material for deciding the question must have 

perished. 

P. 450, 10. song of sixe partes . . . Flute: the same six instruments 

are enumerated in the title of Thomas Morley's First Booke of Consort 

Lessons . . .for sixe Instruments, 1611. The bandora (or pandora) and 

cithern were like a guitar, with wire strings, played by a plectrum, the 

bandora acting as a bass to the cithern. 

P. 451, note, depart': no instance quoted before F. Q. (1590) iii. 7. 20. 

See The Woman, Intr. vol. iii. p. 232. 

P. 452, 8. protested, &c. (and note) : the minimizing in Q 3 must be of 

Hertford's prompting, like the omission of the details of the banquet, pp. 

448-9. In Nov. 1595 he was again sent to the Tower, for petitioning for 

recognition of the validity of his first marriage, but released on the following 

Jan. 3. 

P. 453. SPEECHES AT QUARRENDON: Hamper considered these 

speeches, with the three on pp. 412-4, as by George Ferrers of The Mirrour 

for Magistrates, because found in a manuscript collection by Henry 

Ferrers,' his namesake if not his relative.' But the relationship is problematical 

; George Ferrers died in 1579 ; and Henry (1549-1633), for whom 

they have also been claimed (D. N. B. art. ' Lee, Sir Henry,' and cf. art. 

* Ferrers, George,' by S. L. L.), though Wood asserts him to have written 

some scattered verse, is not certainly known for a poet (Hunter's Chorus 

Vatum, Addit. MS. 24,491, p. 421). The employment of Lyly's practised 

hand is much more probable, especially if Lee had used him before ; and 

the general style and contents are clearly Lylian, e.g. the elaborate 

balance of the Chaplain's opening, the Page's euphuism, the conceits of 

the Legacy, and the close resemblance of the dialogue between Constancy 

and Liberty to the subjects and style of Loves Metamorphosis. The 

occasion is the Queen's two days' visit to Sir Henry Lee at Quarrendon, 

some two miles north-west of Aylesbury, in Aug. 1592, as is proved by 

the heading of the dialogue in The Phoenix Nest, 1593 (given p. 458, 

footnote; and cf. Nichols' Progresses, iii. pp. 125, 129), and by internal 

allusions, e. g: ' the old Knight,' Loricus' retirement, &c, which link this 

with previous Tilt-yard occasions. For Sir Henry Lee (1530-1610) see

SPEECHES AT QUARRENDON 

above, pp. 384, 410-4, 517-8. The D. N. B. thinks he joined the Cadiz 

expedition in 1596. 

The general idea of the first day's entertainment, which, in the absence 

of stage-directions, seems not of very clear or happy design, is that ' the 

olde knight,' Sir Henry Lee, whom the Fairy Queen has deprived of sight 

and liberty as a punishment for wandering love, recovers both by the 

Queen's visit and interpretation of certain ' enchaunted tables'; while 

other ladies who, essaying the undoing of the charm, have become 

victims and prisoners to inconstancy (p. 456 11. 36 sq.), are also released, 

and Inconstancy herself converted. The idea of the second day is simple, 

to thinness. 

P. 454, 7. Queene of Fayries'. see note on Elvetham, p. 449 1. 32. 

12. At the celebrating, &c.: i. e. the anniversary of the Queen's 

accession, Nov. 17, kept annually by a joust at the Tilt-yard. If the 

speech be taken literally, Sir Henry Lee, having by his retirement in 1590 

declared his inability to joust in future, had in 1591, to make a show of 

service, thrust himself into the arena to endure any shock that might 

(apparently) be inflicted ; and his passive inertia is now explained by 

enchantment which still continues. Cf. note on ' A Cartell,' &c, p. 518. 

P. 455,10. Scarborows warning : among the Roxburghe Ballads (iii. 

154) is one (perhaps later) in black letter about two men slain fighting for 

the love of one Ann Scarborow: but Hart. Misc. x 257 prints one, with 

a refrain ' And take Scarborow warnynge cverichone,' referring to the 

surprise of Scarborough Castle in Mary's reign, 1557, by Thos. Stafford, 

who had landed in Scotland from France with but few men. It was 

recaptured within six days, and Stafford beheaded. The proverb, then, 

means ' no warning'; though Fuller, who tells the story (Worthies, 

Yorks. ed. Nuttall, iii. 398) suggests a second explanation. 

21. The olde Knightes Tale : not, I think, in immediate sequence to 

last speech : cf. 11. 16-7 and the presentation of a new jewel, p. 457 1. 26. 

36. Not far from hence . . . saluted', this might refer to Aureola's 

speech in Elvetham Ent., only there is no mention of her inviting the 

Queen to a feast in her bower, nor of jousts, on that occasion. Possibly 

the reference is to some features in the Theobalds entertainment, May, 

1591, of which record is lost. 

P. 456, 9-10. enchaunted pictures . . . woordes, &c.: probably a series 

of Emblems, like those reproduced in Nichols' Progresses, ii. 124-7 as 

adorning a wainscoted closet at Hawsted Place, Suffolk, which the 

Queen visited in 1578. 

17. One asked, &c.: presumably, the Queen. 

26. Filler that was croundex cf. the quotation from Segar, above, 

p. 411 top ; and Endim. iii. 4. 155. 

P. 457, 13. teene : AS. teona, injury, vexation. 

17. be extended: with allusion to the legal sense of ' seizure.'

528 NOTES 

23. resolution : solution of the ' tables'; st. 5, above, and p. 459 11.5-6. 

26. woorthles meede: another jewel. 

32. Coslumq' solumq' beavit: below, p. 469 11. 3-4 ' hath made the 

weather fayre, & the ground fruitfull at this progresse.' 

P. 458, 1. The Songe, &c.: sung by the ladies alluded to above, st. 8 ; 

the two Ladies being Constancy and Inconstancy (or Liberty), who seem 

by an inconsistency to be imagined as also among the prisoners. 

6. Knightes restored', cf. below, p. 459 11. 2-6. 

P. 459, 5. enchaunted tables: cf. above, stt. 5, 11. 

11. though . . . speake after you', showing that she is speaking 

first: or the Thanksgiving must be pronounced by Constancy, as in Ph. 

Nest. 

P. 460, 14. Acquisito termino cessat motas: The Woman, i, 1. 128-9 

Nature threatens the Planets ' Be sure I will dissolue your harmonie, 

When once you touche the fixed period.' Cf. Euph. i. 288 1. 35. 

P. 461, 21. Lu It is a coulde coulde, &c.: the argument from this 

point bears strong resemblance to that between Niobe and Silvestris in 

Loves Met. iii. 1. 80-133. 

P. 462, 14-6. this simple woorke: another present. Loose: same pun 

on Helen, Etiph. i. 179 11. 8-9. 

P. 463, 8. Semper eadem : the Queen's favourite motto. 

P. 464, 22. Loricus : probably for loricatus, alluding to his late office 

as Champion. 

P. 465, 18. uncoth: unknown, unfrequented, as Maydes Met. i. I. 238. 

P. 466, 32. Subsilire in caelum, &c.: I cannot find it. 

38-9. to lyue, to die, &c.: so to live as to die willingly. 

P. 467, 6. Testament: was this conceit a pathetic reference to the loss 

of his surviving son? cf. Tilt-yard, p. 413 1. 31, note. 

20. will say . . . good hand: vouch for its authenticity. 

P. 468, 2. Soule . . . gueste: either an allusion to, or anticipation of, 

the famous lines ' Go, soul, the body's guest/ attributed to Sir Walter 

Raleigh, and first printed in the second ed. of Davison's Poetical Rapsody, 

1608. They are found in Harl. MS. 6910, fol. 141 (c. 1596) ; Mr. Bullen 

knows of no earlier copy, nor I.—The present lines recall the form of 

contemporary wills, which commence with a statement of the physical and 

mental condition of the testator, and bequeath his body to the ground 

and his soul to his Maker. The 5th stanza, like the 1st (and cf. p. 469 1.29 

his ' best payment . . onlie good prayers '), looks like a reminder that 

his services were yet unrewarded. Lyly seems to have recalled Loricus 1 

oratory and this ' Testament' in his own petitions to the Queen of 1598 

and 1601: cf. above, pp. 65, 71. 

24-5. Stellatus .. . Renatus: names perhaps of religious suggestion 

(' glorified' and ' born anew '), but possibly a Latinization of real names 

(Starre, Stareleigh, Rennie? &c).

SPEECHES AT BISHAM 529 

P. 469, 3. weather . . . ground, &c.: cf. above, p. 457 1. 32 ' Cœlumq' 

solumq' beavit.' 

31. The Legacye: to be'annexed (as a codicil) to his former Will' 

i. e. the verses of pp. 467-8. 

P. 470, 2. priuate: pun on ' privet,' but to transpose with succorie 

would violate accord with the other items. 

9. to springe pleasure : cf. Mid. iv. 3. 48 ' spring the partridge.' 

P. 471. SPEECHES AT BISHAM, SUDELEY, AND RYCOTE. NO reader, 

probably, will require proof of the authorship of the Bisham speeches, which 

in style and matter are the exact Lyly. The Wild Man is repeated from 

Cowdray of the preceding year; Pan is the same in speech and manner 

as in Midas ; Ceres has Nymphs as in Loves Met. (cf. Woman, iii. 1. 50). 

So, too, with those at Sudeley: apart from style, there are favourite 

phrases and allusions, and a general resemblance to Loves Met., while 

no other writer could possibly rival the claim of the Pliny-soaked Lyly to 

the song ' Hearbes, wordes, and stones.' In the Rycote speeches the likeness 

is not so glaring, but quite obvious, even had we not the printer's 

address to tell us all three sets are by one hand. Even Nichols (Pref. 

p. xxviij notes that 'the entertainments of this Progress are marvellously 

full of quips and conundrums'; and had Lyly's recognized text ever 

received due attention, we should not have waited till now for the 

identification of work so obviously his. 

3. this last Progresse: we left the Queen at Quarrendon. The 

date of the Bisham visit is fixed with probability as Aug. 21 by a 

letter from Mr. Thomas Posthumus Hoby at Bisham, dated Aug. 14 

and stating that the Queen ' had appointed to be there on that day 

sennight' (Nichols* Progresses, iii. 124). 'Early in September we find 

the Queen in Gloucestershire, when she visited John Higford, Esq. lord 

of the manor of Alderton ... On the 12 th of that month her Majesty 

was at Sudeley Castle, the mansion of Giles Lord Chandos [she seems 

to have reached Sudeley on Sat. the loth, and left it on the 13th, cf. 

p. 484 1. 4 note] ; and thence, after resting some days at Woodstock, to 

Oxford on the 22nd' (lb. p. 129). On Thursday the 28th she left Oxford 

for Rycote, which she quitted on Mon., Oct. 2 (pp. 485 1.2,489 1. 23); and 

when Law-term began she was at Windsor (Nich. iii. 214). 

5. the Lady Rvssels, at Bissam: Bisham Abbey in Berks., on the 

Thames, some 2 m. from Great Marlow and 10 from Windsor, on 

the death (1566) of Sir John Hoby, the translator of Castiglione, passed 

to his widow Elizabeth, third daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke of Gidea 

Hall, Essex. She married as her second husband (1574) John, Lord 

Russell, who died in 1584. By her first she had two sons, Edward and 

Thomas Posthumus, both living at the time of this visit, and two 

daughters, Elizabeth and Anne, who died in 1571: by her second, two 

daughters, also named Elizabeth and Anne, who may be represented by 

BOND I M m

530 

NOTES' 

the Isabel and Sybil of the dialogue. For Lady Russell's literary and 

learned repute, see D. N. B. art. ' Hoby, sir Thomas.' She died in 1609. 

For Lords Chandos and Norris cf. below, under Sudeley and Rycote. 

10. Joseph Barnes: printed and published 1585-1618. Printer to 

Oxford University as early as 1585 (Sta. Reg. ed. Arb. ii. 793). 

P. 474, 2. Dotterels . . . dance: cf. ' We have another leg strain'd 

for this dottrel,' B. Jonson's Devil is an Ass, iv. 6 (Nares). 

23. Roses, Egletine, harts-ease: specially selected as the Queen's 

flowers ; Theob. pp. 417-8. 

P. 475, 12. Fraunce, to weaken Rebels: 4,000 men under Lord Willoughby 

de Eresby were sent in 1590, and 4,000 under Essex in 1591, to 

assist Henri IV against the Spanish opposition. 

13. Flaunders: she had supported the Netherlands against Spain 

since 1585. The Spanish siege of Ostend was now progressing. See 

below, pp. 486-7. 

17. hedlesse: Norfolk beheaded 1572, Mary Stuart, 1587; the 

Babington conspirators put to death with tortures in 1586. 

20. Baucis: Ovid. Metam. viii. 630 sqq.—a favourite allusion with 

Lyiy- 

P. 478, 7. Swel Ceres, Sec.: this song is included in Englands Helicon, 

1(00 as 'sung . . at Bissam . . in prograce. The Authors name vnknowne 

to me,' i. e. to ' A. B.' the ' Collector.' 

P. 477, 10. the Castle: Sudeley Castle, near Winch comb in Gloucestershire 

and about 6 m. north-east of Cheltenham, was built temp. Henry VI. 

The owner and host on this occasion was Giles Brydges, third Lord 

Chandos, 1547-1594 ; for whom, with the whole family and the castle, 

see Sir S. E. Brydges' lengthy Introduction to these speeches, pp. 17-53. 

Chandos' wife, who long survived him, was Lady Frances Clinton, 

daughter of the Earl of Lincoln: she had two daughters, Katharine 

and Elizabeth, now aged 16 and 14 respectively. 

22. lewdnes: ignorance. 

P. 478, 1. Nescis temeraria, &c. : Ov. Met. i. 514. 

11. Nee prece, Sec.: Ov. Fast. ii. 806. 

17. Tantatne animis, Sec.: Aen. i. T I. 

22. surbated: wearied, properly i bruised'; OF. surbatre. 

P. 479, 14. My hart and tongue, &c.: this song is included in 

Englands Helicon, 1600 as 'sung ... at Sudley Castell ... in prograce. 

The Author thereof vnknowne.' It also appears with music in 

John Dowland's A Pilgrims Solace, 1612. 

30. Nimpha mane, Sec.: combined from Ov. Met. i. 505, 518. 

P. 480, 3. dunghill cock, Sec.: Fabulce Æsopica plures guingentis, 

Lyons, 1571, No. 188, 'Gallus repertor Vnionis'; also Phaedrus, ii. 12 

' Pullus ad •Margaritam.' 

5. broomy : stiff, stubbly: N. E. D. has one instance, 1709.

SPEECHES AT SUDELEY AND RYCOTE 531 

6. rough hewen: rough fashioned, rough, as p. 485 1. 7. Contrast 

' rough-hewed' (Cowdray, p. 424 1. 26). 

23. table: picture. Euph. ii. 6 1. 32. 

P. 481, 1. The thirde day: Monday, Sept. 12. 

31. Cutter: i. e. sheep-shearer; or, perhaps, dandy, swaggerer, one 

who cuts a dash (as often). Cf. p. 484 11. 1-2. 

32. beane, &c.: properly a Twelfth-Night custom, N.E.D. s.v. For 

the singular peaze cf. Euph. ii. 5 1. 10. 

P. 482, 21. Cut.: i. e. Cutty (Cuthbert), or for Cud.[dy]. From p. 483 

11. 12-3 the Cutter does not sing the song. 

26. plaide: gambled. 

29. Hearbes, wordes, and stones, &c.: this song appears in Englands 

Helicon, 1600, 1614, signed i Anonimus,' and headed ' Another Song 

before her Maiestie at Oxford, sung by a comely Sheepheard, attended 

on by sundrie other Sheepheards and Nimphes. 5 Since this part of the 

Sudeley entertainment was not actually given, Lyly must have made 

the song serve at Oxford a fortnight later. Wood (Annals, i) says that 

on her entry (Fri., Sept. 22) ' From the Undergraduates she had an 

Oration and Verses spoken by two of them, and from the Bachelaurs 

and Masters the like' ; while Stringer mentions a discussion on the 

following Tuesday 'An Morbi curantur per Fascinationem & per Daemones?' 

(Nich. iii. 158) but possibly these lines were introduced as part 

of some show offered on an evening. See Biog. Append, pp. 379-80, 

P. 483, 5. seldome so well, &c.: Sannaz. Arcadia, Pros, iv 'molti 

commendarono le rime leggiadre, e tra rustici pastori non usitate.' 

7. leripoope: properly the quantum sufficit of knowledge for a 

degree, liripipium being an academic hood. Cf. Saph. i. 3. 6 note, /]/. 

Bomb. i. 3. 128. Sense-accent on ' he onlie.' 

16. Taylers crafte : i.e. too cramped, or too nicely-dexterous, or 

else comparing the plectrum's movement to that of the needle. Faste, 

because a hurt hand would stop his playing. 

26 eight partes : Latin Grammar joke : tolerable for ' declinable.' 

P. 484, 3. seuenth of September'. ' the Queen's birthday ' (Nichols). 

4. the eleuenth : should be the day of the Queen's arrival; but Melibceus 

is speaking on the 12th (cf. moisture, 1. 6), and since Sunday preceded 

the rainy day (pp. 477 1.34, 481 1. 1), she must have come on the 10th. 

14. hemlocke and honie : alluding to the practice of smoking bees by 

burning hemlock. Euph. i. 194 1.17, and cf. the collocation in Saph. (Prol. 

at Court). 

30. dueties: respect to their superiors. 

32. shepheards weedes : some product of Cots wold wool. 

P. 485, 1. Rycote: 10 m. E. of Oxford on the way to Thame. A 

drawing of the house, built temp. Henry Vl-Vlll, is given in Nichols, 

iii. 169. It was pulled down early in the last century; but the fine 

M m 2

532 NOTES 

Perpendicular chapel remains, though in decay. See my Introd. to 

Basse's Poet. Works, p. xvi. 

3. an olde gentle-man: the host, Sir Henry Norris (1525 ?-16o1), 

son of Anne Boleyn's alleged lover, created by Elizabeth Baron Norris 

of Rycote, which came to him, 1559, by his wife Margaret, daughter of 

John Williams of Thame. 

14. my foure botes: five of the six sons enumerated by Dugdale 

(Baronage 1675, ii.404) were living ,viz. John, Edward, Henry, Thomas, 

and Maximilian ; William the eldest, having died in 1579. But Sir John, 

the second and most famous, was now in England for a brief interval 

(see D. N. B.) and therefore probably at Rycote. Only from four sons are 

letters presented, below; that to ' Lady Squemish' being from one of the 

supposed authors of the last two. Fuller (Worthies, 1662 fol., Oxfordshire) 

gives the order William, John, Thomas, Henry, Maximilian, 

Edward : the D.N. B. follows Dugdale : the order of the following letters 

agrees with neither. 

21. the Crowe 7ny wife'. Fuller mentions this nickname applied by 

Elizabeth to Lady Norris, ' being (as it seemeth) black in complexion,' 

and quotes the Queen's letter of condolence (22 Sept. 1597) on Sir John's 

death, beginning—' My own Crow.' 

28. Qui color ater, &c.: ' Cui color albus erat, nunc est contrarius 

albo,' Ov. Met. ii. 541. 

P. 486, 4. A letter . . . Irish lacq,: i. e. from Sir Thomas Norris, 

d. 1559, who had, with the exception of a brief visit home in 1583, been 

serving in Ireland since 1579 (cf. 'ten years absence,' 1. 18). He was 

in England for a few months in 1593, and on his brother John's death in 

1597 succeeded him as President of Munster. 

26. comming fro Flaunde?s : i. e. from Sir Edward Norris, d. 1603, 

who after much service and much quarrelling in Flanders was made 

governor of Ostend in 1590, and was now defending it against the Spanish 

siege. 

33. p.'nk: small Dutch boat; Hakluyt Voyages, i. 610 (Whitney). 

P. 487, 17. the second . ... the thirde: both letters are from men 

embarking for Brittany (cf. the French Page). The ' trunchion' of the 

third perhaps indicates the fourth son Henry (d. 1599), who was sent out 

in May, 1592 to report on the condition of the English force, rather than 

the youngest son Maximilian, to whom we may assign the second, and 

who was killed fighting in Brittany under his brother John in 1593. Yet 

the * trunchion' would be still more appropriate to Sir John Norris, who 

was actually in command of the 3,000 foot sent to Brittany in April, 1591. 

See note on p. 485 1. 14. 

P. 488, 7. pax: sacred tablet, the kissing of which replaced the ' kiss 

of peace' in Rom. Cath. worship. 

17. your L..: i. e. his mother, Lady Norris.

HAREFIELD ENTERTAINMENT 533 

P. 489, 14. my daughter : no mention of her in Fuller or Dugdale,but 

evidently married in Jersey. The Channel Islands have been English 

since the Conquest. 

P. 491. HAREFIELD ENTERTAINMENT: Harefield lies near the river 

Colne, in the N.W. corner of Middlesex, three to four miles N. of Uxbridge, 

and three to four miles E. of Chalfont St. Peter in Bucks. In 1585 John 

Newdigate exchanged the manor for that of Arbury in Warwickshire with 

Sir Edmund Anderson, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who in 

1601 conveyed it to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper, to his wife Alice, 

Countess-Dowager of Derby, and to her daughters after her. They were 

the Queen's hosts on this occasion for three nights, July 31-Aug. 2, 1602. 

The Countess held the house and manor till her death in 1637 (Milton's 

Arcades was performed here in 1634), and by the marriage of her eldest 

daughter, Lady Jane Stanley, it passed to the family of Grey, Lord 

Chandos, 1647, and then by marriage of his son's widow to Sir William 

Sedley. About 1660 Harefield Place was burnt down, owing, it is said, 

to Sir Charles Sedley reading in bed. In 1675 the manor returned by 

purchase to the Newdigate family, and the house was rebuilt shortly 

afterwards; but Sir Roger Newdigate, living on his Warwickshire estate 

at Arbury, sold Harefield Place in 1760, though he retained the manor 

and built Harefield Lodge nearer Uxbridge in 1786. In 1823, when 

Nichols published the second edition of his Progresses, house and manor 

were again united in the possession of the Newdigate family, in whom the 

estates, with those at Arbury, are still vested ; though the present Harefield 

Place was erected about a century ago on another site than the old 

one, neither is it, nor yet Harefield Park and Harefield Grove a mile or 

two to the north, in actual occupation by the family. (Nichols' Progresses, 

iii. 581-5 ; Kelly's Directory of Middlesex, 1899.) 

Sir Thomas Egerton (1540 ?-i6i7), natural son of Sir Richard Egerton 

of Ridley, Cheshire, had attracted Elizabeth's notice by his forensic 

abilities : he should not, she said, plead against her, and he became 

Solicitor-General 1592, Master of the Rolls 1594, and Lord Keeper 1596. 

In July, 1603, he was created Baron Ellesmere by James I, and Lord 

High Chancellor. He died at York House in the Strand, March 15, 

1616-7. His marriage to Alice, sixth daughter of Sir John Spencer of 

Althorp and widow of Ferdinando fifth Earl of Derby, had occurred in 

Oct. 1600. The cost of the Queen's present visit, as revealed by the full 

accounts preserved in the Egerton Papers, pp. 340-57 (Camden Soc. 

No. 12, ed. J. P. Collier, 1840), was not far short of £2000, i.e. about 

;£ 16,000 present value, and this notwithstanding the extensive contributions 

in kind made by neighbours and friends all over the country. 

Chamberlain, writing to Carleton on Nov. 19 (Nich. iii. 600) says, 

I send you here the Queen's Entertainment at the Lord Keeper's. If 

you have seen or heard it already, it is but so much labour lost'; from

534 

NOTES 

which it might be argued that it existed in printed form, but no such 

quarto is known, or entered on the Sta. Reg. in Aug.-December, 1602. 

Failing such, the Entertainment, as here presented, is made up (1) of 

Nichols' reprint of a copy made in 1803 of a contemporary MS. in 

possession of Sir Roger Newdigate. This MS. must have survived the 

Harefield fire c. 1660 and been transferred to Arbury by Sir Roger in or 

before 1760 ; but, whether then or earlier, it got itself hidden between the 

leaves of a copy of Strype's Annals of the Reformation (1709 fol.), where 

it was first found in 1803 by the Rev. Ralph Churton, to whom Sir Roger 

had presented the volume. Fortunately Mr. Churton took a copy before 

returning the MS. to Arbury, where it was again mislaid. After Sir 

Roger's death in 1806 it could not be found; nor did the Churton transcript, 

which had followed it to Arbury, turn up till 1820, when Nichols 

was allowed to print it: (2) of the earliest accessible printed version of 

the Lottery, that namely of the third edition of Davison's Poetical Rapsody, 

1611 (it appeared first in the 2nd? ed. 1608, of which a copy exists 

at Britwell: Mr. Bullen reports only three trifling variations). It is there 

announced as 'presented ... at the Lord Chancellor's house, 1601 ' ; but 

its connexion with this occasion is proved by Manningham's Diary 

(Harl. MS, 5353, f. 95), where among the entries for Feb. l6o2[-3] 

(ff. 91-102) occurs ' Some [16] of the lotteries w ch were the last Sumer 

[i. e. that of 1602] at hir M ties being w th the L. Keeper,' followed immediately 

on the same leaf by a mention of and quotation from the ' dialogue 

betwee[n]e the bayly and a dary mayd.' Moreover in a MS. among the 

Conway Papers printed by P. Cunningham 1845 (Shak. Soc. Papers, 

1844-9, vol. ii. art. ix ), the St. Swithin song, Mariner's song (not his 

speech), and ' The severall Lottes' are given under the heading ' The 

Devise to entertayne hir Mty at Harfielde, the house of S r Thomas 

Egerton Lo. Keeper and his Wife the Countess of Darbye,' while in the 

margin appears ' In hir Ma ts progresse. 1602.' Lastly, in the Egerton 

Papers, among the money accounts of the visit already alluded to, occurs 

(P- 343) ' 6 August, 1602. Rewardes to the vaulters, players, and dauncers. 

Of this x li to Burbidges players for Othello, lxiiij s xviij 8 x d . 

Rewarde to M r Lilly es man, which brought the lotterye boxe to Harefield, 

per M r Andr. Leigh, . . . x 8 '; and ' 20 August, 1602. Payd more by me 

[Arthur Mainwaring] for lotterie guiftes, as by my booke and by bill also 

apeareth, being paide to M r Stewarde . . . 18li 2s 9d.' I have, however, 

abstained from inserting the Lottery in the* Newdigate MS., as also from 

altering the order of the latter, though of course Place's farewell should 

form the last item. 

Lyly's authorship, of the prose at least, is not to my mind doubtful; 

I had decided for it before I found the significant proof of his connexion 

with the affair just italicized from the Egerton Papers (cf. ib. p. 346 ' for 

carriage of tentes from St. Johnes . .. ix 8 '). The euphuism is modified—

HAREFIELD ENTERTAINMENT 

it is now twenty-two years since he published the Second Part of 

Euphues: yet it is strong enough to identify his hand in the Mariner's 

speech and the farewell speech of Place ; and there are the old puns, the 

old appeal to proverbs, and a general likeness to the manner of previous 

entertainments, especially in the opposition of nymphs and satyrs (cf. Pan 

and the two shepherdesses in the Bisham speeches) and in the introduction 

of the rustic figures of Joan and the Bayly, besides the detailed resemblances 

noted in the margin. The customary attribution of the Lottery 

to Sir John Davies rests mainly on the initials 'I. D.' appended to it by 

Davison in the second and third editions of his Poetical Rapsody, where 

it appears between two poems undoubtedly by that author. Doubtless 

Davison meant it for his ; but his attributions are not always free from 

doubt, and, were the manuscript copy from which he printed recoverable, 

it would not surprise me to find the D merely one of Lyly's straggling L's. 

The Mariner's song and speech are sufficiently Lylian ; Lyly's connexion 

with the Mariner is proved by the Egerton Papers, which have no mention 

of Davies (or any other poet), to whom it is unlikely that the Lots alone 

would have been assigned. Grosart gave to him, not only the Lottery, 

but the whole Entertainment (Davies' Works, ii. clxxii-viii). The parallels 

he quotes for the prose portions are naught; but a line he cites 

from the Conteition, given at Cecil's reception of the Queen at his 

Strand house Dec. 6, 1602—' Beauties fresh rose, and Vertues living 

booke '—must 1 think be an amplification of St. Swithin's first line ; and 

nos. iv, vii, x, xv, xvii of Davies' Lfymnes of Astrcea, 1599, have some 

resemblance, chiefly of movement, to this song, as to the Ode. Of 

Cynthia, 1600 : e. g. Hymne x, last stanza— 

' Renowned art thou (sweet moneth) for this, 

Emonge thy dayes her birth-day is ; 

Grace, plenty, peace and honour, 

In one faire hour with her were borne, 

Now since they still her crowne adorne 

And still attend vpon her.' 

On the whole I admit Davies' probable authorship of St. Swithin, his 

possible of the Lots; and it may be that the contents of the Conway MS. 

exactly define his share, though I think the Mariner's song is more like 

Lyly.—The following comment in Chamberlain's letter to Carleton of 

Dec. 23 (Nichols, iii. 601) is interesting: * You liked the Lord Keeper's 

Devices so ill, that I care not to get Mr. Secretary's, that were not much 

better, saving a pretty Dialogue of John Davies 'twixt a Maid, a Widow, 

and a Wife,' &c. In truth this Harefield Entertainment, like the rest, is 

no great things ; yet there is a pleasant freshness and naturalness about 

Joan and the Bayly, and about Place. 

P. 491, 7. Queene entered, &c. : the Queen wrote from Greenwich, 

July 15 ; she was at Sir William Russell's at Chiswick July 28 ; thence she

536 

NOTES 

went to Ambrose Copinger's at Harlington (near West Drayton on the 

G. W. R.); and thence to Harefield on July 31, apparently a Saturday, 

for Joan on her arrival wants to keep her i all this night and to-morrow,' 

in order to send her into the harvest-field on Monday. She proceeded to 

Sir William Clarke's, near Burnham, and the Progress was continued 

throughout August and September, two or three weeks being spent at her 

own palace of Oatlands in Surrey. She was at Richmond on Oct. 8 

(Nichols, iii. 578-9, 595-600). 

8. the Dayrie howsc. Churton identified this with a house called 

'Dew's farm' in the time of Sir Roger Newdigate, who said that the 

Queen was here first welcomed by allegorical persons who attended her to 

a long avenue of elms leading to the house (Nichols, iii. 583, 587, notes). 

18. greene rushes: cf. Saph. ii. 4. 98 ' straungers haue greene 

rushes.' 

19. chirkinge: chirping. Frisketts: N. E. D. compares OF. friquet, 

a small lively sparrow. 

P. 492, 5. ware : wear, grow. 

10. Carpenters and Bricklayers : Eg. Papers, p. 348, Thomas Sle's 

account for ' carpenters and Brick leaers' for alterations in kitchens and 

dining-room, together with other outside labour, amounts to 199li. 9s. IId. 

18. sillibub : syllabub, properly wine mixed with milk and sugar. 

23. loath to learne to praise: i.e. we are accustomed to do so. 

24. jenitings : early apple; 'ginni tings,' Bacon's essay 'Of Gardens 

(Skeat). 

25. able-Johns : apple-johns, cf. N. E. D. 

P. 493, 18. hower glasse, stopped', of. Ode. Of Cynthia, 1600, p. 414 

' Times yong howres attend her still.' In the illustration to Elvetham 

Ent. Neaera in her pinnace holds aloft an hour-glass. 

22. godbwy: god be with you, good-bye. 

P. 494, 38. my daughter Truth: see title-page of Loves Metamorphosis, 

vol. iii. p. 299. 

14. guiltlesse Lady, 'giltless sainte' of Conway MS. is the better 

reading. St. Swithin's Day is July 15. 

16. La. Walsingham : not Sir Francis' widow, who had died suddenly 

on June 18 of this year; but the wife (ne'e Awdrey Shelton) of Sir 

Thomas Walsingham 1568-1630, who had been knighted by Elizabeth. 

P. 496, 7. the Lady . . . burning iron, &c.: alluding to the legend that 

Emma of Normandy cleared herself of a charge of unchastity A.D. 1043 

by stepping unharmed over nine redhot ploughshares, having seen St. 

Swithin (d. 862) in a vision the previous night (Annal. Monastici, ii. 21, 

Rolls Series : and D. N. B.). 

P. 497, 6. inchaunted Castle of Loue: probably alluding to the tract 

mentioned in Laneham's Letter as among Capt. Cox's books, and entered 

on Sta. Reg."to Thos. Purfoote in the period July 22, 1564—July 22, 1565.

KING OF DENMARK'S WELCOME 537 

Its title is thus given by Ames ' The castle of loue, translated out of 

Spaynyshe into Englyshe, by John Bowrchier, knyght, lord Bernes, at the 

instance of lady Elyzabeth Carew, which book treateth of loue betwene 

Leriano and Laureola, daughter to the king of Masedonia.' 12mo. 

(Herbert and Dibdin's Ames, iii. 195 : and Shak. Soc. Papers, 1844-9, 

vol. iv. p. 32.) 

15. this Anchor: cf. Egert. Pap. p. 343 '10 August, 1602 Payde to 

the goldsmith, part for the anchor and for other matters . . . viij li .' 

P. 498, 1. Candean: Candian, Cretan, i.e. Ariadne. ' Candia' was the 

Venetian version of the Saracenic ' Khandax' (Smith's Diet. Ck. Rom. 

Geog.). 

5. Clymen : Clymene, mother of Phaethon by Apollo (Ov. Met. i. 756; 

Hyg. Fab. 156). 

P. 499, 3. Lord Chancellors house: i.e. he was Lord Chancellor in 

1608. See introd. note. 

5. Carricke: carrack, large ship for freight or fighting. Mr. Bullen 

9Poet. Rhap. ii. 179) cites Grosart (Davies' Works, vol. ii. p. clxxiii) as 

thinking there is allusion to the large Spanish carrick laden with treasure 

from the East Indies captured by Sir Richard Levison and Sir William 

Morrison in June, 1602. 

9. Fortune: I know of no vessel explicitly so named by Elizabeth, 

but cf. Elvetkam, p. 446 1. 27 note. 

12. no fishing to the Sea, &c.: quoted as i an olde saying,' Cowdray, 

p. 428 1. 12 ; 'a Prouerb . . . not yet forgotten,' 1671, N. E. D. Grosart 

{Works of Davies, ii. p. clxxix) quotes an instance from Greene's James 

IV, i. 2. 

27. sharking: piracy, a shark being a needy adventurer. Lay 

vsurie, &c, because from that he can clear himself. 

P. 500, 20, marg. Lo. Derbyes Wife: Elizabeth, daughter of Lyly's 

patron, the Earl of Oxford, and wife of William, sixth Earl of Derby, who 

had succeeded to the title on the death of Ferdinando, 1594, without male 

issue. Of the other drawers, M r8 Vauissour (No. 15) is Anne Vavasour, 

the maid of honour, old Sir Henry Lee's inamorata ; Mrs. Kiddennister 

(No. 22) is probably the wife of ' Mr. Kiddermaister,' who figures in the 

Egerton Papers, p. 351, as contributing a buck, game, sweetmeats, &c. 

P. 505, 1. KING OF DENMARK'S WELCOME : I think it possible that 

Lyly devised the showering tree and wrote the song here given, the more 

so that the latter is not found in Ben Jonson's brief Entertainment at 

Theobalds, July 24, 1606, where three Hours welcome the kings with 

allusion to the shower— 

'Vouchsafe your thousand welcomes in this shewer, 

The master vows, not Sybil's leaves were truer.' 

Henry Roberts' account says ' Before these Royall Persons came neere 

the house of Theobals, there was strewed in the highwayes aboundance

538 NOTES 

of leaves coloured greene, cut like oaken leaves, on every one of which 

was written, in large Romaine letters of golde, " Welcome, Welcome"' 

(Nichols' Prog. fas. /, ii. 62). Of the City pageants on July 31st, the song 

of shepherd and shepherdess (with following or preceding dialogue) at 

Fleet Street Conduit (Ludgate Circus), is very Lylian in manner (which 

the former song is not), and the motto 'Deus nobis haec otia fecit' was 

used by Lyly at Cowdray. The talk of ' two Sunnes' (cf. Elvetham, p. 444 

'a second Sunne') suggests Lyly for the Theobalds song. Roberts says 

( Then rode they on, without stay, to Fleete Conduit, which was garnished 

sweetly (on the toppe was placed dclightfull musicke); and were presented 

with other Speaches, which were graciously accepted' (lb. p. 68). 

Sir John Harington, writing of these pageants under date August 3, says 

'that at the Fleet was in form of a pastoral; a Shepherd, standing by 

a shady fountain with his Shepherdess, conjured her now by her oath to 

give place to his affection, since she had promised to do so, when there 

should be two kings in one kingdom peaceably' (lb. p. 73). 

A FUNERAL ORATION. 

P. 509, 8. Written : by Infelice Academico Ignoto: in his later years 

Lyly is perpetually harping on his claims as a scholar. For remarks 

introductory to this composition see Biographical Appendix, p. 388, above. 

P. 511, 6. to beholde Liny. Plin. Epist. ii. 3 ' Nunquamne legisti, 

Gaditanum quendam Titi Livii nomine gloriaque commotum, ad visendum 

eum ab ultimo terrarum orbe venisse, statimque ut viderat abiisse ?' 

30. ancient T/iracians, &c.: grounded perhaps on Plut. Consol. ad 

Apollotiium, c. 22, where it is said that only effeminate nations, Egyptians, 

Syrians, Lydians, make great mourning for the dead. Cf. too cc. 23, 27. 

P. 512, 1. Petrarch . . . in what Sphere, &c.: perhaps thinking of 

Sonn. 278 1. 13 'E vo sol in pensar cangiando '1 pelo, Qual ella e oggi, 

e 'n qual parte dimora,' &c. 

16-32. the report is that the Thessalians . . . restrained their ambition : 

closely from Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas, c. 33, though less closely in the 

last three lines. 

P. 513, 20. the Babilon of this world', maintaining the image of 

Thisbe. Cf. Ov. Met, iv. 55 sqq. 

22. The Moone... ecclipsed, &c.: Plut. De Placitis Philosophy ii. 29.4. 

23. prison of the bodye: Plato's Phaedo, 82-3, as in Camp. i. 2. 

30-6. 

29. Crates . . . Diogines, &c.: Plut. De Inimicoram Militate, c. 2


The instances of Crates and Zeno occurred in Euph. i. 308 

1.23,3141.36. 

31. Democritus lost his eyes'. Plut. De Curiositate, c. 12, denies the 

truth of the story that Democritus of Abdera voluntarily blinded himself 

by gazing at the blaze of light reflected from a mirror, that his contemplations 

might not be subject to disturbance from the eyesight. 

36. Plato . . . interdicted. . . lamentation : Repub. iii. 387 D, Laws 

xii. 949. Probably Lyly's source was Plut. Consolatio ad Apollonium, 

c. 22. 

P. 514, 8. a Lake {as Aristotle reporteth) neere . . . Eridanus, &c. : 

Arist. De Mirab. Auscult. c. 81' 

Pliny, xxxvii. 11 does not reproduce this. 

25. I am amazed, &c.: cf. Letter to Cecil on Burleigh's death, p. 393 

11. 4-6. 

31. Curce leues, &c.: Seneca, Phaedra, 615. 

P. 516, 9. Collin Clout . . . Rowland: Spenser had died on Jan. 16, 

1598-9, in King Street, Westminster. Rowland was the pastoral name 

assumed by Michael Drayton in his Rowlands Sacrifice to the Nine Muses, 

published in the same volume with Idea, 1593, 4°. If he wrote no elegy, 

he was punctual in his welcome of the new reign with a poem ' To the 

Maiestie of King James,' which met with no gracious reception. I know 

no similar composition which I can claim for Lyly. 

ADDITIONAL NOTE ON SENTENCE-STRUCTURE 

IN EUPHUES, 

IN my desire to treat Euphuism in as small a compass as possible 

I may seem to have done but scant justice to its elaborate sentencestructure, 

the main point in the advantage it conferred on English Prose. 

What I have said on this head is comprised in the paragraph on Antithesis, 

which stands at the head of my analysis (pp. 120-1) and in a 

passage on p. 145 ; and it may be that the examples chosen hardly give an 

adequate idea of the extreme complexity to which the structural balance 

is sometimes carried. Attempts have been made to reduce these complex 

forms under definite formulae of double or triple structure: but the variety 

in the examples which have been, or might be, quoted convinces me that 

such attempts are in reality mistaken. What needs assertion, and is not, 

perhaps, asserted with sufficient distinctness in the paragraph referred to, 

is the constant presence in Euphues of a duplicating, triplicating, or multiplying 

habit, applicable at almost any point in the structure of a sentence.

540 

NOTES 

It arises from an unusual activity and alertness in the composing brain, 

which continually thrusts upon the writer parallel or opposed instances, 

and parallel forms of expression ; and it is encouraged by the perception 

that such doubling and tripling may be made to minister excellently to 

that exact balance or Antithesis which is Lyly's dominant artistic principle. 

To a sentence, a clause, an epithet, an adjectival or adverbial 

phrase, just written, he constantly adds a second, a third, and sometimes 

many more, of an almost or exactly parallel structure 1, indulging the 

multiplying habit according as his fancy or memory happens to be fertile 

or restricted in its momentary direction, and working over the sentence 

afterwards with critical touching and readjustment and insertion of alliterative 

devices to increase, or define more sharply, the innumerable 

points of balance. Simply to assert this general principle of composition, 

issuing in numerous sentence-forms infinitely variable by the accidents of 

the working brain, seems to me better than to attempt to classify the 

sentence-forms actually used ; for I believe their number is too large for 

such classification to be profitable, and might have been much larger had 

Euphues been of twice its present length Except for the details, the 

shorter forms, I do not believe that he formed or followed patterns at all, 

even as an unconscious habit; but that his elaborate sentences simply 

grew, under the guidance of the general habit indicated, working fitfully, 

as the preference and mental upthrow of the moment dictated, and were 

polished afterwards into a regularity always limited by the freedom of 

their first appearance. As example I invite the reader to examine the 

three paragraphs on pp. 192-3 ' As touchinge my residence .. . entised 

with iasciuiosnesse,' where he will note not only the constant presence 

of the duplicating tendency, but the varying extent to which it is carried 

1 To this exact structural balance of parts of speech, this ' similarity of position 

and of grammatical function' as Mr. Child words it (p. 52 of his treatise), the term 

'parison' or 'parisonity' has been applied; a term which, though it is too late 

now to change it, and though I have ielt bound to reproduce it once at least to 

make sure that the reader would identify the feature so often discussed, I think 

inappropriate, partly as clashing with the general term of Sound-likeness applied 

to Lyly's alliterative and other devices discussed on pp. 123-5, partly as ill representing 

the fact it is used to denote. Sound, the ear, enters of course largely into 

the shaping of the sentences of every writer with 1 care for foim; and has its share 

in this matter of clause parallelism, inasmuch as clauses constructed of like parts 

of speech will sound in a measure alike, will possess, that is, the same rhythm, 

varying only with the variation in the number of syllables or words in either 

clause ; while, further, some of the devices of sound-likeness may be employed to 

mark the parallelism more distinctly. But in haidly any, if any, case do these 

alliterative devices accompany, step by step, the elaborate clause-parallelism 

referred to, the effect of winch is really due to the fact that the woids chosen are 

grammatically correspondent. It would remain, were all forms of sound-likeness 

(except the inseparable rhythm) absent; it would remain, were the sense of the 

two clauses neither antithetic, nor parallel, but wholly different; and its apparent 

connexion with either sound or sense amounts, 1 believe, to no more than that 

grammatical symbols are apprehended, through the ear, by the intelligence. For 

' parkonity' therefore I would put simply ' clause-parallelism.'

SENTENCE-STRUCTURE IN EUPHUES 541 

(e.g. 11. 21-4 on both pages, 11. 1-5 p. 193, II. 25-8 p. 192,11. 13-4 p. 193), 

and the variety of arrangement still left even where regularity has been 

imported by alliterative devices ; evincing, I think, the freedom of first 

composition no less than the careful retouching and heightening of what 

had been once written. 

One other principle of structure seems of sufficient generality to be 

noted—a point, just mentioned by Dr. Schwan (Englische Studien, vi. 

98), to which my attention has been recently called by Professor M. W. 

Sampson of Indiana University —the habit, namely, of subdivision 

(Prof. Sampson calls it ' progressive balance'), by which the second of 

two statements or suggestions is split up into two others, the second of 

these again split up, and so on. Its instances are not perhaps often very 

perfect, but its principle is, I think, fairly distinguishable from that just 

noted, as a continuous hanging chain, from each of whose supporting 

links one other and superfluous link depends, would be distinguishable 

from a number of links very variously strung, some with many superfluous 

links attached, some supporting two or three little branching chains, the 

whole forming in fact not so much a chain as a piece of irregularly-made 

chain-mail. At bottom this second habit is merely an application of the 

first (the doubling, multiplying, or chain-mail habit) to the common 

inartistic trick of taking the last word or suggestion as the starting-point 

of something further, a trick I have noted (vol. iii. p. 436) in contemporary 

verse, and in some lines which I attribute to Lyly himself. Seldom, 

I think, is it carried beyond three links ; and after long search I cannot 

find a better instance than this which I give on Prof. Sampson's suggestion 

and with his comment— 

Euph. ii. 198 ' This noble man I found so ready being but a straunger, to do me 

good, that neyther I ought to forget him, neyther cease to pray for him, that as he 

hath the wisdome of Nestor, so he may haue the age, that hauing the policies of 

Vlysses, he may haue his honor, worthye to lyue long, by whome so manye lyue in 

quiet, and not vnworthy to be aduaunced, by whose care so many haue beene preferred.' 

Two things are predicated of Burleigh, I. his lack of acquaintance with 

Euphues, 2. his goodness. His goodness inspires I. lasting memory, 2. prayer. 

The prayer is twofold : 1. may he have the age of Nestor, 2. may he have the 

honor of Ulysses. And both age and honor are shown to be his due. 

The fourth step, it will be noticed, is not a further subdivision, but 

merely a parallel continuation of the division made in the third step ; and 

such parallel heaping up of an equal number of clauses or suggestions 

on either side is, I think, far more common, as it is much more easy, than 

any continued subdivision, e.g. i. 186 11. 26-32, 185 11. 11-9, 247 11. 13-8, 

26-32. In fact this second principle, though distinguishable, tends 

in practice to merge itself in the freer method of the first; and in any 

case is more often noticeable as a matter of structure than of sense, e. g. 

i. 186 11. 14-6.

ERRATA ET ADDENDA 

. i. pp. 21, 34, 48, 60 for G. F. Baker read G. P. Baker. 

p. 149 11. 7-10. Lodge's Rosalynde is more euphuistic in style than 

I have here admitted. Though not so elaborate in its balance, it 

often reproduces Lyly's phrases; and in course and conduct the tale 

is somewhat indebted to Gallathea, between which and As You Like It 

it forms a connecting link. 

p. 327 (note on p. 179 1. 7). Lodge's allusion, in his reply (1580]) to 

Gosson's Schoole (Lodge's Works, iii. p. 20, Hunteiian Club), to Alexander's 

scar, ' neither is euery one Alexander yt hath a stare [? starr, 

scar] in his cheke,' is perhaps derived from the present passage. 

p. 330 (note on p. 188 1. 23). Marston's Pigmalions Image did not appear 

till 1598. 

p. 335 (note on p. 198 I. 23). The tale of Titus and Gisippus, in which 

the latter abandons his love Sempronia to his friend, is from Boccaccio's 

Decameron (Day x, Nov. 8). It had been reproduced by 

Sir Thos. Elyot in his Gouernor, 1531, whose account was closely 

followed in a dull poem entitled ' The most wonderful and pleasaunt 

History of Titus and Gisippus, whereby is fully declared the figure of 

perfect frendshyp: drawen into English metre by Edward Lewicke. 

Anno 1562.' The tale reappears, under the names of Septimius, 

Alcander, and Hypatia, in Goldsmith's Bee (Collier's Poetical Decameron, 

ii. 79-85). 

p. 386 1. 8 for William Watson read Thomas Watson. 

p. 477 1. 19 a black sheepe is a perilous beast: this expression, repeated 

Endim. ii. 2. 154, forms, with the added line ' Cuius contrarium falsum 

est' (' which nobody can deny'), the refrain of an old ballad, of pre- 

Reformation days, directed against the rapacity of the Mendicant friars. 

It is printed, with five others, in Early Eng. Poetry, vol. 13, 1844 

(Percy Society), from a MS. in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 

pp. 522-3 (note on Elvetham Entertainment). Collier (Poet. Decameron, 

i. 131 sqq.) introduces a mention of it into a discussion of eaily blank 

verse. He considers that' all the poetry in the piece is much above 

an ordinary scribbler,' and quotes with approval Aureola's lines 

(pp. 449-50), and the first sixteen of the English version of the 

opening address of the Poet, identifying him (as do I) with the author, 

whom he thinks may possibly be Chapman, 'though at present we 

have nothing before us to lead to such a conclusion.' 

. ii. p. 230 for 1599 (twice) read 1600 in accord with vol. iii. p. 336, footnote, 

p. 265 11. 17 sqq. In regard to my suggestion that the songs in Lyly's 

plays were handed to the boys separately along with the music, and 

so not given in the prompt-copy, I find some confirmation in Lansdowne 

MS. 807, where in the play The Buggbears—zn early translation 

or adaptation, Herr Schiicking tells us, of Grazzini's La Spiritata, 

Florence 1561—of five songs I find only the first, a comic duet (i. 3),

ERRATA ET ADDENDA 543 

embodied in the text, the rest (which are unrepresented, says Herr 

Schucking, in the Italian) being copied out all together at the end of 

the piece (fol. 75 v.), and the fourth, that of Iphigenia, which alone is 

heralded in the text at all (iii. 5), being repeated on f. 76 r. with the 

air to which it was to be sung. 

p. 311. As possibly indebted for suggestion to Lyly's Canipaspe may be 

just worth mention William Goddard's ' A Satyricall Dialogue, or 

a sharplye inuective conference, betweene Alexander the great and that 

trulye woman-hater Diogynes. Imprinted in the Lowe countryes for 

all such gentlewomen as are not altogether Idle nor yet well occupyed.' 

The satire is written in the couplet; and the line 

' They burne all books wherein their faults they find' 

alludes, says Collier (Poet, Decameron, i. 305-7), to the sentence passed 

and executed upon Marston, and fixes the date of the production c. 1600, 

when the order would be recent. 

p. 542 add to note on p. 321 1. 63 'liued by sauours'the following title— 

A True and admirable Ilistorie of a May den of Confolens, in the 

Prouince of Poictiers; that for the space of three yeeres and more hath 

liued and yet doth, without receiuing either meate or drink, &c. . . . 

1603, 8° (translated by A. M. i.e. Anth. Munday from the French of 

Nicholas Coeffeteau). 

Vol. iii. p. 13 in last two lines of footnote, for 1595 and 1585 read 1598 and 1588 

respectively, in accord with the corrected dates of vol, i. p. 394. 

p. 261 1. 54 for necte . . . sui (the en or of Q) read nocte . . . sinu. 

p. 272 1. 66 for these . . . interlaced . . . floodes (the reading of Q and 

Fairholt) we should probably read the . . . interlace . . . woodes. 

p. 296 (penultimate line of text) for 1529 read 1599. 

pp. 448-502. Of my collection of Poems probably assignable to Lyly I find 

that Nos. 21, 24, 27, 30, 35, 37, 41 1 , 59 were also printed, from the 

various Music-Books, by Collier in his Lyrical Poems (Percy Society— 

Early English Poetry, vol. 13, 1844). For No. 21 he suggested 

Michael Drayton as author; while he seems to think that No. 24 was 

written by Dowland himself to ' the Countess of Denmark,' to whom, 

as then Lutenist to the King of Denmark, he dedicates his volume of 

1600. He takes No. 35 from William Bailey's New Book of Tabliture 

for the Lute, &c, 1596. Lyly's possible authorship of anything he 

admiied would not be likely to occur to Collier. 

END OF VOL. I

OXFORD 

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 

BY HORACE HAART, M.A. 

PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

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